The Party at the Hacienda

Talking about haciendas, here’s a real one, in Spain. With horses up close. Perfect for the New Year of the Horse, init? 马年大吉！龙马精神！身体健康！步步高升！Hah, didn’t know I could blurt out these Chinese New Year greetings, eh?!? That’s what you’d learn when you get involved enough with the culture… a benefit in working for a Chinese company! But I actually already know the Cantonese version of them when I was in Malaysia. (Literally, they mean… Horse Year Big Luck! Dragon Horse Vigour! Body Healthy! Step-Step High Rise!)



Most of these photos are compliments of IPMA, the International Project Management Association. They’re mainly from the IPMA Global Awards Gala 2023, which was a black-tie event held in the Hacienda Azahares, near Seville, Spain in Sep 2023. The IPMA Global Awards are an annual function organized by the IPMA that celebrates and gives out awards for achievements in Project Management. Our company participated in the awards in 2023, and 2 of our company’s projects were finalists in the category of Large & Mega-Sized Projects.

As luck would have it, the awards ceremony was held in Spain, and most of my colleagues (who’re Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, etc), including my bosses, needed a Schengen Visa, to attend. And yours truly, being a Malaysian, ahem, could just fly straight there!!! (Schengen Visas, for some inexplicable reason, takes months to apply, here in the UAE!!! Maybe, it’s just because there’re too many rich people from the difficult passport countries here wanting to visit Europe…) And so, there I was, with a British employee of our company, to represent the Company in 2 Projects which we had no involvement in at all! And We WON! Gold & Silver! Applause! Applause!


Andrew Battershill (the Project Manager of our company’s NEOM Tunnel Project), and yours truly, holding our ‘awards’!




Dinner at the Ballroom of the Hacienda Azahares, Seville, Spain, Sep 2023. (Trivia: All the IPMA photos above featured yours truly… Can you spot me??)


What’s Spain, without a flamenco performance?!?




The IPMA Global Awards group photo, Sep 2023


It’s not all party & play, by the way. We also have to do some work. Learn about the Projects and explain how our company accomplished them! At the Torre Sevilla, Seville, Spain


A group photo for the IPMA Global Awards presentation at the Torre Sevilla (or the Seville Tower in English), the tallest building in Seville, …in the whole of Andalusia, actually! From the left, an Iranian delegate; my colleague Andrew Battershill; yours truly; Dr Raymond Young from the IPMA; and a delegate from Kazakhstan


A view from my hotel room, the Eurostars Torre Sevilla…


In front of the Hotel Vincci at the Plaza de Molviedro, another hotel which I stayed in Seville on the 3 nights that we were there… (Eurostars was fully booked for one of the nights). I prefer the Vincci actually. It’s closer to the older (and nicer, to me) part of town, a mere 10-minutes’ walk to the Seville Cathedral.

That’s all for today. For the Chinese and those celebrating the New Year, Happy New Year! Hope you have a joyous reunion. For those who’re fasting, have a fulfilling Ramadan! (Or Lent, for the fasting Christians).

A Place or Two about Horses

Meydan Racecourse, Dubai, UAE

Yippee. I just realized that I’ll get a couple of days off for Chinese New Year next week!! That’s the perks of working for a Chinese company, hehe! (It’s not a public holiday here, in the UAE, by the way). I’m now rushing to finish off some work here before the end of the day so that I’ll get a blissful, long weekend…, and ummm, should I slot in a post?

Here’s one superfast, filler of a picture post coming up. Have had these photos for an eternity now… What better way to ring in the Year of the Horse than some photos of a racecourse and a polo club!

Gong Xi Fa Cai to you all! Wishing you a super, terrific, happy & prosperous new year!


I don’t remember exactly what this function was… It was an invitation by Justin’s old school, the Royal Dubai School, and it was in 2019, February, about the same time as Chinese New Year in that year!




Look at how small the kids were! Justin was umm… 9, and Jayden was only 4!


Giddyup… Who won? Who cares, we weren’t paying attention… and there’s no betting…


Here’s another horse-related place, the Dubai Polo & Equestrian Club – it’s in Dubai Studio City, the neighbourhood next to ours


Doesn’t this place remind you of a hacienda in Spain?!


Whoa… Diamond Man! Is he in anyway related to Emma Frost? (of X-men fame). Jayden was invited for a birthday party here 2 years ago. Thanks to the parents of Talia, Jayden’s classmate


The Dubai Polo & Equestrian Club, May 2024


Yours truly, at the Meydan Racecourse, Feb 2019… I wouldn’t mind being that young again, haha

Anyway, wishing you a fantastic year ahead! 新年快乐! 恭喜发财!

A Successful Snow Mission

I’m back in action! But still recovering from that dratted fistula surgery, or you could call it, re-surgery (that’s the problem with fistulas, there’s always a chance for it to friggin recur!). Anyway, continuing on the snow theme, here’s a snow mission that succeeded, …in 2023! See for yourself!


The top of the Amirsoy Ski Resort, Chimgan, Uzbekistan

One of our main aims, when we visited Uzbekistan in Dec 2023, was to see snow and, ski! (If the kids wanted to). It’s the easiest (and cheapest, ahem) country to get to at that time, because they allowed UAE residents to enter visa-free!! And nobody (OK, almost nobody), visits Central Asia in friggin winter (it’s frigid! Parts of it was -21C when we were there) So, before the situation changed, I bought the tickets and voila! We were there! The catch is, that while Uzbekistan is pretty big, the mountains are all tucked up in one small corner of the country. The rest of the country is pretty much flat, with large areas of it, a desert… Luckily, the corner where the mountains are, aren’t too far away from its capital, Tashkent. Here’s our story in pictures!


Yippee, we’re on the way! On the road towards the mountains from Tashkent (this was one trip which we decided not to drive. Heck, the attractions are mostly in the cities, and they’re far apart, much easier to travel by train! For Chimgan, we took a cab from Tashkent)


Welcome to Chimgan!


Around our hotel… It’s called …something Apachi something something… (it’s in Russian Cyrillic, OK?!) This is when Google Translate, or Yandex Translate, can come in really useful!


Looking fresh… on the day we arrived (before all the falls I’d have. Darn! Look out when it’s sunny and nice, after a snowy day. The snow will melt and refreeze to become friggin ice!)


We tried to get to the Charvak Lake, but ended up in Chinorkent instead (that’ll happen, if you don’t know Russian or Uzbek). But we have no regrets. It's not bad at all, just look at the views! (Yup, Charvak Lake is visible from up there!)




There’s even Santa Claus and his missus! (I didn’t know Santa Claus had a wife?!?) I searched it up, my bad, it’s not actually Santa Claus, it’s Ded Moroz (Father Frost), the Slavic equivalent of Santa Claus, and the girl is Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), his granddaughter, not his wife! And interestingly, the Uzbeks, although they are 95% Muslim, celebrate the Christmas season, complete with Christmas trees, music, dancing, Ded Moroz, and what have you, as a non-religious winter festival! A nice legacy from its past Soviet communist rule, I'd say. I think this should be how society is, celebrating each other’s festivals, and respecting each other’s cultures and beliefs. Imagine how Afghanistan would have been, had the world let the Soviets take it over in the 70-s.


We’re in Amirsoy! Care for some skating?? Nope… Justin can't wait to ski!


And he’s a natural. Successful on his first try, ever! (This was our first ever skiing!) And on his second try, he could already bring himself to a stop at the bottom! (And me? Don’t talk about it. I fell, and rolled, and fell myself all the way down the beginner’s slope, twice!)


And that was what Jayden and mommy were doing, while we were skiing (or falling, in the case of yours truly…)






The Amirsoy Ski Resort, Chimgan, Uzbekistan, Dec 2023


OK, time to get back to the city… On the way, you’ll pass thru this strange resort, which features an aeroplane! It’s the Sevarsoy. I read that it’s a health resort…

That’s all for today.