Charity Bazaar

I had the opportunity to help out in the charity bazaar at the United Nation International School, organised by the Hanoi International Women's Club (it's a club for women expats in Hanoi). Celine, from the Hanoi International Fellowship needed some volunteers to help sell soft drinks.

So many 'International' word... yea.. it was very international. Every corner i turn to, a different race, a different colour, a different language. I never could imagine Hanoi had such many internationals. Expatriates with their wives and children. USA, France, Italy, German, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium, UK, India,... i'm l;osing count... It was huge...

The drinks stall I helped out at... collected about VND30 mil in 6 hours, selling at VND10,000 a can. Not bad eh? Thats about USD6k++

satay was kinda expensive... VND8,000 a stick. tat's almost RM2

i had one of these done on my left hand... :P

Xe om...

Mike has rented a bike and he's been giving me a ride to office on it... got a few heart attacks on the road... ahah... poeple honning everywhere, may be annoying in the beginning. it's really a different kind of traffic jam here. how am i ever going to ride here? i really wonder...

it takes us about 15 minutes to get to office. I wear a wind breaker on top of my working suit, boots, put a clip on my hair, and gets on the bike, without a helmet. By the time we reach the office, my hair gets messy. It's getting cold now and with the wind when riding on bike... i think i need to get some extra jackets soon nearing month end.

It cost VND3,000 (1USD = 16,100 VND) to park a bike in the office building. The parking basement of the office building has no cars. Just bikes. Well, I have not seen any cars but I guess there is. And oh! Highland Coffee is opened at the ground floor of the building! yey!

I came back home tonight with a xe om (motorbike taxi) today. It costs VND25,000. Enjoying the rides without helmets now before it's compulsory to wear one in Decemeber. It's really cooling and erm.. exciting!

oh oh... me and Mike went to the night market last Sunday.. and gosh... its even better than SS2's pasar malam. Clothes are very cheappp.. I bought a cotton jacket for VND45,000 (about RM10!).

New Home...

We've moved in our new home for the coming 1 year... :) I like this place very much. It's a 3 storey house at Tay Ho, Hanoi and about 50m from the main road. It looks a little luxurious and its comfortable. They landlord has been very kind to provide most of the things we need to bed linens and toilet papers. And we've got fish pets!! We're suppose to feed them only once a week. We've also got a maid to come twice a week for USD60.

There's is Makro hypermarket in Hanoi!! It's a little far from the city centre but a good place to stock up. Me and Mike bought household things worth VND3 mil yesterday! Now, we're almost settled in .... :)

Me and Mike occupies the 2 rooms in the first floor. Mike's kind enough to let me have the bathroom in the 2nd floor while he uses the ground floor's. Well, it's also because there's a urinal in the ground floor's bathroom, which I will not use in a million years.

My room is the smallest room in the house. :) You can play basketball in Mike's room, and futsal in Bryan's. haha. Bryan's room on the third floor is just hugeee and with a spacious balcony too..

Peep of the place: No.6F, Alley 94, Au Co Street, Hanoi.

my room...

More pics at flickers... http://www.flickr.com/photos/9241123@N05

Millionaire!!

I'm a millionaire!!!!

Well, I'd wish so... I'd be a REAL millianaire if it's in USD... :P It's only my air flight claims to Hanoi in Vietnam Dong...

Week 2 in foreign land...

Well... week 1 was fast... We've signed the rental contract today and paid a month's deposit... So i'm really broke now... ahah. Thank God we're allowed some cash advances from the company to cover 3 months advance rental. We'll be moving in this weekend... :) The landlord is a nice local couple, friendly and honest people. We got to choose some of our furnitures... Can't wait to move in. Will post some pics when we're settled in.

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Church made me feel more at home yesterday... I managed to find the place myself as one of my boss who told me about it was back in Msia. A group of say 200+ expats gather in Bao Son Hotel's ballroom every Sunday morning to worship and fellowship. And they are an established group of people. Check it out http://www.hifvn.org/app/ Friendly Tram (pronounced as 'Cham') invited me to join she and her family for lunch at Pho 24 (popular restaurant chain http://www.pho24.com.vn/ ).

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Week 2 in Hanoi also means job 2. I have yet to finish my previous job and today i'm off, bringing 3 juniors to another new client. (For those auditors who understands this part..) guess what? First 3 weeks of my job schedule... one job a week, with all first year clients! you gotta be kidding me... new to the methodology, new to the language, new to the place, new to the work style... i just wan to say.. omigawd... i feel tired thinking about it... but yea it still has to be done.

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My experience today... with 3 juniors, we went to Thang Long Industrial Zone to audit this new client of ours. Another thing that amazes me... none of my them has accounting background... :) one has a degree in business admin, another in economics, and wahlah.. one in chemistry! ahah. really amazing how this chemistry guy can end up in an audit firm. They don't speak very fluent english. Therefore, they don't really feel comfortable asking me questions. They often talk among themselves discussing audit works that they don't understand I presume. All I hear is...*#&$(*&$*@ trade receivables... (&*(& debit... *&()(0 system.. *&()* fixed assets...*&8&& depreciation..^&*((()) etc.. eheheh.

House Hunting...

House hunting lasted for about 3 hours... We saw about 6 houses... We've decided on a really nice house... :) Houses in Vietnam is very different... You don't get to drive your car and park right in front of your house. Roads are meant for motorbikes. Houses are tall as land is expensive.

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A 2 room apartment in the business area cost about USD1,200. It's too expensive for us, although it's 5 minutes walk to office. A reasonably nice house with 3 rooms at a better and quiet area costs us less. We decided to stay 5km away.

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Houses in the expat area (Tay Ho, Ciputra) can be really nice... although roads heading to it may seem to be creepy. :P

Peep of the road to the house... :)

Weekend is coming soon...

Work's really taking my energy... It's tough adapting to changes... New documents, new people, new language, new culture, new methodology.

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Had training for half a day at a club today. They have their trainings at clubs and hotels, except their conference rooms... Too much money? And the partner was pissed off as half the people turned up late. ahah.

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My first Taiwanese client... it's 1 hour away from the office... I thank God that they arranged a Msian fren, Eric to go in with me on my first job. Yea they have a translator ... but this time not for me! ahaha... I speak mandarin... but man... I still cant understand half of their mandarin... so deep... They have a translator that follows my junior around to translate Viet-Eng and vice versa. Sometimes, I just stand to watch them communicate and be amazed... Sometimes my client's tone gets louder and louder cos he just cant seem to get the msg across and vice versa. I think i need to learn more business terms in mandarin...

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There will be many times that I'll be sitting in a room where people speak a language that I cannot understand. A few days of this has not yet annoyed me. Maybe i'll give me peace as I wouldnt have to listen to what these ppl are saying. Maybe it'll disturb me as I wont know if they are talking about me? Well, we'll see how it goes....

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Weather is good here now... air-con temperature... real nice and cooling... i love it.

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In this small shop on the road nx to my office, I bought a pair of nice boots tat cost me RM35 and two ZARA knitwears for RM70. Two weeks ago in KL, I bought the same sweater in black for RM99. Dem… what was I thinking. It’s all made in Cambodia.

First day at work...

The plane from HCM succesfully landed at Hanoi at 8.15am...

First unsuccessful scam!

The taxi driver was about to charge us USD25 for the ride to our hotel when it cost only USD10. Knowing this fact well, I asked the hotel receptionist to kindly translate to this , and finally he said a price of USD12. Fine, we paid him and he drove off so fast with his car boot still open! He must be really mad.

With only about 3 hours of sleep last night, my head is spinning a little by then. Took a shower, had lunch, and went to report at the office. Well well, first day, people are generally friendly. :) Got a new HP laptop for work and also a job scheduling tats just packed. And looking at documentations tat I'm unfamiliar with scares me a little. There is a need to pick it up very quickly as we are on jobs straight away. One job each week... Now i'm scaring myself more.

Just too tired to do anything else today. Gonna have dinner here at the hotel and got to bed soon.

Horrible flight?

My adventure to Hanoi started even from KLIA itself.

'Oh man, flight is delayed for two hours! Oh well, it's ok, I can walk around duty free shops and write type some emails with a cuppa coffee.'

After 2 hours:

'What??? Another 2 hours delay??? Ok, not that I can do anything about it. We shall find a comfortable spot to get some rest'

After another 2 hours:

'You got to be kidding me!! Your dinner vouchers ain't gonna make me happy!!! FINE, we shall have some pizzas for dinner and call the hotel in Hanoi to notify them that we'll be checking in after midnight.'

All in all, we had a 6 hour delay at KLIA!!! :S

'Alright... we're boarding... here we go to HCMC and then to Hanoi!'

Plane lands in HCMC...
'It's raining... oh wow, we need a bus ride to the airport... '

At the terminal...
'What's going on??? Hi, we are to transit to Hanoi, where do we goto?'
'*&*(923&^ @^#*( @*((# lang bang tong song etc '
'Hey, English pls?'
'What??? No more flights to Hanoi????? NO WAYY! Hey, I start work tomorrow!!!'

'I'm sorry mam, we can't do anything. There is only flight tomorrow morning.'

After a longgggggg explanation and arrangements... (man... I think these ppl need management training for unpredicted situations), we are to stay a night at HCMC and take the 0630 flight to Hanoi. Great, I'm going to miss my first day of work.

They had a bomb scare on the plane. Therefore, for precaution purposes, (yea i get it), they checked every spot on the plane causing the longggg delay.

Oh well, I get a glimpse of Saigon and it's a 5 star hotel but what the heck it's 1am now, I'm too tired to enjoy it.

Good side of it? If it has been a normal flight, I would have nothing to remember it. Met some Malaysians on the flight. Made some friends from a horrible flight.

I'm leaving on a jetplane...

But oh jetplane.... where art thou!!!! My flight has been delayed for 4 hours! N here I am blogging from KLIA, feeling tired for tomorrow. Expected arrival time at Hanoi has been delayed from 7pm to 11pm. And i start my first day of work tomorrow... :S Vietnam Airlines... you ain't giving me a good impression.

So how do I feel as I'm about to leave now...? Totally mixed feelings i would say. I shed no tear. Not that I won't miss anything in M'sia. So much that I would miss that cannot be described by words. Anticipation of a new life in a new place... it's an excitement within. Also, I think the delay of flight is making my feelings more mixed than ever. Oh jetplane, pleaseee arrive soon!! Better not delay again!

Bye all..... good time of trying to squeeze my things into the limited weight of 30kg. :P