Memoirs of a Whirlwind Trip

Happy New Year all..

The CNY festivities have not ended. Unfortunately, Thais do not remember CNY as a festival worth awarding public holidays, so I had no choice but to do a whirlwind 4-night trip to 2 countries, first my native Kuching, then where my wife cum gf cum fiancee is, Singapore.

This is the first time I will be narrating using pictures, and the words ended up a little small, just remember that most pictures below contain words to describe them!!! Do take note, because some of these words contain precious hints of some interesting news (i dunno whether u care, but i'll remind u to read more carefully anyway..)

KUCHING

SINGAPORE

Last but not least, I managed to spend a few hours in the mall with Li Li. She'll be coming to Bangkok for longer periods of time soon, Whoopee!

Diversity: Gucci vs Chanel?

Before I begin, I would like to wish all of my friends, no matter where you are, a Happy and Prosperous Year of the Tiger. For me, it's been a couple of days of mixed news, but since it's supposed to be a happy occasion, let me just think of the positives... I am becoming an uncle soon!!!!!!!!
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When I was leaving for Malaysia from the Suvarnabumi airport, I stumbled across some deities doing a tug of war using a poor 3-headed snake:

The purple deity looks as if he was coordinating the event. So naturally I had to look left and right to observe the 2 teams competing.
To my astonishment, the team on my left was representing Gucci. It has the help of the 3-headed snake as well. So I couldnt resist but to turn to my right. Hoho...... not bad.... the Right team is representing Chanel!!
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Who wins then? I'm not sure, they seem evenly matched. I think they are just trying to summarize Thailand's diversity in a nutshell.

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Gong Xi Fa Cai! And this is the last year I can say 红包拿来！！

TRAGEDY......... close............

UPDATE: After post mortem from our staff in Singapore. The PSA crane driver dropped our container from 5 storeys high, 20 tonnes of goods, free fall to the ground, creating holes in the ground in the process.

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I got this picture from my manager in Singapore this morning on my email, followed by the msn messages:

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"bad news"

"container fell down, dropped by PSA, emailed you to see the damage"

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My heart dropped, stopped.

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I had been very proud that after 6 months of utter hard work, I have managed my first full container import. I shared my joy with many people as it was a milestone complete earlier than I could have expected, but this? Of my 5 years of work experience, importing and exporting containers in the process, I have not seen anything worse. For this to happen at PSA is really disappointing.

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BUT.

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The manager in Singapore was so stunned himself that he forgot to tell me that it wasn't my container. It was a container sent on the same day as mine to the port, but going to Africa.

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THANK GOD.

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It's peak season here in Thailand. This is my only container for this month because of the CNY break. Losing this container would be losing my business for my best month of the year (like Orchard losing December), and for a small startup like mine, it would equate to possibly a unprofitable year.

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It is still a tragedy, and PSA should not be forgiven because my company (not my branch) is still immensely affected by this disaster, but for me, my life goes on, and it's a reminder that I should not take anything for granted, because shit happens when u least expect it. PHEW!

A Rare Sentimental Moment

Hi guys....

Been keeping quite quiet on the blog front. My company is going through the phase where we are setting new sales records every month and I can happily say that we have just ordered a full container load of goods! The only problem is that my "warehouse" per say, seems smaller than the container itself.... but we'll take care of it.

I spent the whole of last night living in the past. I had a dream, of taking 4 straight JC exam papers in 4 consecutive days. Mr Sandman did not let me off. He made me sit through the preparations, and one paper after another, until finally I woke up, just in time to not be late for work. What a relief! But then, for the whole day, I remember vividly every detail of the dream, and it's been some sort of a deja vu...

It made me think of the past, and to sort of also miss the times when I was younger, not that I am very old now, but to relive college days again gave me a very special feeling.

In the past 2 weeks, I met up with a friend thrice. She was in Bangkok for 2.5 months for research. We were neighbours for I think 20 years. There were other coincidental indirect linkages between us but I shall not delve too deep into history. The fact is that we were almost physically next to each other for 20 yrs, but we only ever bothered meeting up to catch up now, when we are both married, both not based in Singapore. To be honest, now that she has left Bangkok, I do not know when we will meet again since she'll be completing her PhD in London.

I think in life, countless people pass us by, and sometimes we really do not try hard enough to see who's who, and miss out on many people who might just become our good friends. Or maybe, being humans, we are just too engrossed in our own lives, that we only treasure things that are either rare, or things that we know we are going to lose soon.

Perhaps we just take too many things for granted, and procrastinate, and regret when we do not have enough time in the end.

As I am in a rare sentimental moment, I shall share with all of you this song on my blog by the Beegees. I heard it when I watched Beegees' One Night Only concert DVD, where they sang this song with their late baby brother (the late brother sang in a video that was played concurrently) and it really touched me at that moment.

Sorry, no pictures in this post, can't really find any picture fitting to my blog post today. Thanks for reading on!

IN YOUR FACE

Eddie bought his customer dinner and here's a short conversation:

Customer was smiling sweetly after talking on the phone in Thai.

Eddie: Your family called you?

Customer: *shakes head* A-DULT-E-RY

Eddie: *gasps*

Customer: Adultery

Sometimes in Thailand, sinning is so in-your-face.

Post mortem

It's approaching 6 months since I have bravely taken up this job. And to be honest, since I came here in August, I have not looked back. From starting with nothing, to an up and running company with modest sales figures increasing every month, I can't help but look back thinking that it was all worth my while.

In the last few months, I have:

1. Rented and renovated a home-office, dealing with contractors who were unprofessional and instructing them using sign language.

2. Applied for water, electricity, internet, corporate bank accounts, set up cctv systems, company data backup systems, sounds straightforward enough, but trust me, when the official language is thai, achieving the above stated is a MONSTROUS task.

3. Signed millions of documents that were scripted with bean sprout characters, feels like signing my death sentence 20 times a day.

4. Lost my passport and my hp within 2 months.

5. Nearly got conned by taxi drivers twice but take note of the word nearly.

6. Called ard 25 pple for interviews and only managed to interview 12, one of them applying for the wrong position.

7. Gotten screamed at by my staff at 10pm in the night for sending him an email asking him to send me clearer pictures if he wanted me to help me look at them and tell him what the object was.

8. Received a resignation letter after sending an email to ask a constantly-2-hrs-late-for-work-or-AWOL staff to try to be punctual.

9. Consistently worked 6-7 days a week to make sure everything in the company is running properly.

BUT, I also have:

1. Had my ROM with the most beautiful lady in the world.

2. Gotten complete trust from my board, which I appreciate so immensely that I will fight tooth and nail to make the company work.

3. Found an amazing man called Rit who is my good staff, as well as my good friend. My life would be upside down if he was not around, and I will make his life better in return.

4. Gotten closer to my ex-clients, Khun Nivest, Weerapong, Nat and Mew. They are now my great friends.

5. Sat at a VIP table at possibly the largest and grandest wedding I will ever attend.

6. Visited most parts of Thailand and realised how beautiful and blessed this country actually is amidst the political uncertainty.

7. Taken photos with a country music superstar, watched a hiphop star perform and a new up-and-coming local band strut their stuff on stage.

8. Found and attended a great church with the most sincere and inspiring lead Pastor.

10. Been nicknamed "village head" by my manager for being greeted by everyone around my home office when I step outside though I speak an awfully mini bit of Thai.


Oh.... looks like I have more positives than negatives.... guess I can't complain much. Before I sign off, here's a sneak peak at how TES Power Equipment Co., Ltd. looks like.

You can find everything here!

Sorry for leaving my blog so stale. I spent a week out of Bangkok with my manager and supplier to meet potential customers. This is the 3rd time I have gone on a long trip covering thousands of km in Thailand, and just 3 trips in, I think this place is seriously awesome.

Before we start let me first clarify that what I am going to show you is exactly what I saw with my own eyes, I will not show you anything that I have not seen yet, so there's really much much more here:

Farmland... endless and endless acres of it, looks green now, but before harvest it will look golden and then it will be just dark brown mud after harvesting.

Street Food
This snack is extremely pretty but I have never eaten it before.



International cuisine
This is the first time I ate crepe cake, it's divine




Flowers.

Most people know that Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have colourful flowers, but does anyone expect this sight? You might need to pay much much more to go much further away to see sunflowers.






Nature
Waterfalls..... this is a fake one, haha.




How about a real one then? I think there are countless waterfalls here.





Religion
Doi Inthanon on the Northern tip of Thailand






This one is at the Southern tip of Thailand





Most importantly, the people! Fun loving and welcoming, what more can you ask for? I was lucky enough to meet Mr Thaksin and Mr Obama during my trip. Abhisit is nearby too.









Last but not least
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Me! Yes, I am in Bangkok, very much so. So if the reasons above do NOT give you a reason to come, this last one should be convincing enough.

PS. I had many more pictures to show, Mountains, Lakes, Rivers, Beaches...... u know what I mean.