The Year of the Ox

Well, Happy New Year guys! I am working on New Year’s Day again, 4th year in a row now. Today morning was foggy and freezing cold, I feel dreary and grouchy, possibly from the late night I had last night. Nope, no wine, no gambling, no nothing else, just a late night out for a ‘Reunion Dinner’ with my fellow Malaysian & Indian housemates. I think I scraped the bottom of my friend’s car on a stupid manhole last night, bloody low bodied sedan, bloody manhole in the middle of the friggin path. (I’m used to driving a pick-up – manholes are just an insignificant part of the road if you’re a pick-up, but not for a low-bodied sedan apparently). This morning in the fog, I nearly got into an accident in one of the friggin high-speed 4 (or 5) lane roundabouts of Dubai while coming to work. Can’t the bloody drivers here drive with a little less speed and more courtesy? Or are my senses becoming slow… shit, another year, another year older… Anyway, I have a feeling my spirits will lift soon. For the time being, I’ll go back to sulking until some excitement comes around…

Here’re some pictures of past celebrations to spice up the celebrative mood… if that’s possible…


Our small wedding dinner at the Ipoh Swimming Club last year


Christmas 2007 - at June & Patrick's House, Damansara Perdana

Gateway to the Gulf

Oman’s Musandam Peninsula

Hi! Happy New Year! Nothing much’s happening over here – Chinese New Year is fast approaching, but it looks like another one where we have to spend away from home, thanks to my boss, who said …“the situation (economy) is this bad and you wanna go on leave??”

I dunno what he actually meant (except that leave is out of the question) but it left this in my head …that if I choose to go on leave now, it’d be for permanent, so I left it at that. Anyway, on the positive side, it’d save me a lot of angpow money hahaha.

Construction in Dubai is not faring too well these times. There’s been massive shelving of multi-million projects and mass lay-offs all across Dubai, China State inclusive. Some were luckier; one Malaysian friend of mine was retrenched only one month after starting work here. His Company (not China State) paid him a severance pay of 3 months, not bad huh? Another associate I know, an Indian chap, resigned from his long time employer here of 10 years, to start work for a new Company. He was retrenched the moment he joined. By that time, he’d already rented a new house in Dubai, settled his family in, and bought a new car…

OK, enough of stories of woe, here’re more pictures of the Musandam Peninsula as promised


Khasab Village, Musandam, Oman


Khor-Ash-Sham (or the Elphinstone Inlet in colonial times), Musandam


Telegraph Island, Khor-Ash-Sham, Musandam – talk is that the term ‘going round the bend’ (meaning going completely nuts) originated from this tiny little island isolated by miles and miles of beautiful sea, barren mountains and nothing else much, so much so that the British officers posted on this island went completely bonkers due to having nothing better to do than wanking to the fantasies of mermaids and dolphins.


Looking for dolphins in the Khor – oh yeah, we saw dolphins – they look like grey rubber balls bobbing quickly up and down the surface of the sea.


A haunted-looking village in the creek


The jetty at Khasab


An Omani fishing boat near Khasab jetty

Merry Christmas from Dubai

Atlantis, The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai

Merry Christmas everyone! Today is a working day here in Dubai. Everything is business as usual, construction work is at full swing, the traffic out side is as crazy as ever, we’ve not bought any Christmas gifts for anyone despite the countless Christians here in the office (and we’ve not received any either – must be the economic recession). The only difference today I noticed is that some of the Christians (i.e. the Filipinos) look a little on the drunk side. We’ve decided to keep our Christmas a quiet affair this year. Anu’s still recovering from the unexpected attack of jaundice / hepatitis. Dunno how she got it, she’s something of a cleanliness freak compared to yours truly.

Anyway, here’s to a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. May you triumph over the darn economic mess that Bush left behind; May you ride over the fears created by terrorists and friggin cheats and thugs; May corrupt and inept governments fall to be replaced by good ones, without creating too much of a difficult time; May we continue to have hope, love and peace if difficult times hit us; May our health always be good; May our surroundings always be filled with joy, laughter and harmony; May our prayers be answered; And may God always bless us, protect us and lead us on the right path.


Door to Atlantis


The alien-like coral tree in the main lobby of Atlantis


Main Lobby of Atlantis

Dubai Update: Eid Mubarak!

Eid Mubarak! Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha! The UAE, being a Muslim country, will naturally have a long festive period (and ahem, …holidays) to coincide with this occasion. China State Construction’s holidays for the Middle East head office starts last Friday and ends today (Tuesday) – 5 long wonderful days. China State Emirates Road Project’s holiday is officially 3 days (Sunday to Tuesday). Unofficially, our gracious boss has agreed to give us TWO peaceful days – Monday, yesterday, and Sunday OR Tuesday, depending on our choice (we picked Sunday). That’s the reason why I’m in the office today, and logging in this entry, since nothing much’s happening out at site today. For the past 2 days of holidays, we decided to explore the Musandam Peninsula, the finger of land poking out into the Arabian Gulf towards Iran, like a gateway to the Gulf. Dry and sparsely populated, Musandam, a part of the Sultanate of Oman is all sea creeks flanked by crumbling barren mountains, with a fort here and a fishing village there.

Here’s a sample picture, will post more once we’ve downloaded the lot into the computer.


Khor Ash-Sham, Musandam, Oman

From Our Bombay Picture Gallery

A picture of the Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghats (open-air laundries), Mumbai, compliments of Eio, our Leighton ex-colleague


Kim pretending to be a construction worker, without much success I’d say


Dad & Kim at an ancient cave temple on Elephanta Island


Dad, Kim & mini train on Elephanta Island




At the Haji Ali shrine – It’s on a small sandbar island connected to the coast of Mumbai by a causeway. It’s supposedly the site where the body of a local pious Muslim, Haji Ali, floated back in a casket and landed after he died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca.


Worshippers at the ISCKON (Hare Krishna) Temple in Mumbai


Gary & Anu at the ISKCON Temple


Anu sulking at the Banganga Tank, Malabar Hill, Mumbai


The interior of the Church of North India, somewhere in Bandra


Anu & Manipuri friend at Bandra Land’s End, Mumbai


The Malaysian trio (Ching, yours truly and Choong) at Bandra Land’s End

Mumbai in Peace Times

The Taj Mahal Hotel, and the Gateway of India, Mumbai

A showcase of Mumbai in calmer times. Just a small dedication to the city of Mumbai, and to the so many innocent lives lost recently in a most heinous terrorist attack… Why do people do what they do? Why the unnecessary carnage?


Dad & Anu near the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel


Kim at the entrance of the Taj Mahal Hotel

The Taj Mahal Hotel was opened in 1903, built by a patriarch of the Tata family, a prominent Indian Parsi family. One of the main reasons why he built this hotel was because he was stopped from entering another hotel on the account that he wasn’t white. So he decided to just screw the British, and build a grander one himself.


Chowpatty Beach


Along Marine Drive (also called the Queen’s Necklace for the string of lights seen from afar at night), Mumbai


Gary & Anu at the Hanging Gardens (Feroz Shah Mehta Garden)


Inside the Knesseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai


The Victoria Terminus railway station (aka Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus)


The Gateway of India at dusk

Dubai Update: Post-Holiday Hangover

Hi, can’t think of anything to update. Went to India for about 3 weeks in October, for the Durga Puja Festival and to tie up some banking matters. Lazed around most of the time in Fulertal village and Silchar in Assam, did nothing much but sleep, eat, and watch TV (or Sudoku, when the power cuts off). Was sick towards the end of the trip, so that helped get rid of the little extra weight gained from the strenuous activity of sleeping & eating. Exciting things were happening in Assam at that time (communal strife, and the bomb in the state’s main city, Guwahati after we left), but thankfully not in the area where we’re at.

Back in Dubai, things went straight into high gear. Now I have my driving license (passed the test on my first try, ahem…) and we survived the Certification Audit for ISO 9001 and are well in line to get certified any time soon. And now is time for me to ask for the car back. And until next time when things get a little more excited, adios.


Durga Puja – Anu’s eldest brother and wife receiving blessings from Anu’s mom


The turn of all the other ‘children’, including yours truly


Getting sticky rice (tika) pasted on the forehead is part of the Nepali custom and signifies a blessing of fertility and abundance from the elders.

The Capital of the UAE

Abu Dhabi, from the breakwater

Here’re some pictures of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, and the largest Emirate in the UAE. It’s richer (in oil reserves), but cheaper and less glitzy than its counterpart, Dubai. It’s less than 2 hours away by car (or 1 hour if you break the law).


Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace (the equivalent to Dubai’s Burj Al Arab)


A mosque in the Heritage Village, Abu Dhabi


Singing Arabian style


Makeshift Emirati fishermen at the Heritage Village


Yours truly at the Public Beach


Anu and a Date Palm Tree

The First Mosquito

Yesterday, for the first time in Dubai, I was stung by a pesky mosquito. And it stung me 4 friggin times. As the seasons in India, and now in the UAE, seem to revolve around mosquitoes, I clearly remember the first time I spotted a mosquito here – 18th September 2008. The climate must be changing now – the mosquitoes are beginning to come alive (only God knows where they’ve hidden all these months), the tap water’s not as steaming hot at 5am as before (it’s only mildly warm now), and I just screwed up my entire library of work information gathered through the years through sheer stupidity… Not really, but now I officially hate Microsoft Vista for fiddling with the ‘My Documents’ folder we’ve grown so accustomed to for so many years. I deleted a folder named ‘Documents’ that was inside the ‘Videos’ folder because it was an exact duplicate of the ‘Documents’ folder under ‘Gary’. And ‘POOF’, the extra efficient computer deleted the blasted Folder in less than two minutes, with a stop, informing me that the files are too long to be in the Recycle Bin or something like that, and whether I’d want to continue. And I happily said Yes! Why not? And then there was none, no more stupid folders called ‘Documents’ in my entire computer except in the Recycle Bin.

No worries, that’s what Recycle Bins are for, …until you try restoring it and find the reinstated ‘Documents’ Folder with nothing inside.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta vs The Sultan of Delhi

Just some pictures of the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai… That’s what you do when you have a demanding Project (or boss) to serve. Ibn Battuta was a traveller in the 14th century, who is my type of fellow (he far out-travelled Marco Polo – wiki it).


Yours truly in the Egyptian Court


A big junk in the Chinese Court


The Tunisian Court


Gary & ex-Mumbai friends in the Persian Court (from left – Ching, Lim & Livia)