Going home...

Blogging from the airplane, indeed my heart is full with joy going back to my own homeland… J My craving for Msian food has been reduced a little with Airasia’s nasi lemak and aik cheong 3-in-1 teh tarik. Although I was back home 3 months plus ago, it feels like ages ago. With all the travelling for the past months, from Vietnam provinces to Mongolia to Beijing and Hongkong, I’ve had my share of good moments, stressful working moments as well as lonely nights. And now, it’s just an excuse for me to say that I need a break. Anyhow, going home is always good. To see familiar buildings, to eat familiar food, and to meet familiar faces… This time, I know I will hesitate to leave again. So many things in my list to do, so many to meet, yet so little time… Can’t stop smiling knowing I’ll land in about an hour…

Earthquake day....

We had a good lunch meal squating by the road side today, literally sitting on a one foot tall stool holding a bowl of mee. Like the old times during primary school when we sit by the drain eating 20 cents nasi lemak. Just that now we are all dressed up professionally with shirt, slacks, and ties... ahah... the bowl of mien chok taste good alright... not as good as penang hokkien mee but sufficient in hanoi... :)

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After which we went for a good cup of 'ca phe sua', vietnamese milk coffee with ice... man it's very 'kau' but taste good! :P

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Went back to office to continue looking at excel files with many many numbers... after an hour, while trying to listen to a client on the phone, my vision suddenly blurred, my head spinning... numbers were moving... goodness me... did i have too much coffee just now or am i looking at too much numbers???? my colleagues started to make alot of noise... well most of the time i can't fully understand what they are speaking in vietnamese. i wanted to shout 'shutup!!! i'm talking on the phone here!!!' until chi tan, my manager came to me and said 'chiem oi, earthquake earthquake!' my eyes opened wide... 'mr. vinh, i'll call you back later' *slams phone*

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well, my first earthquake vibration in vietnam....

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Dear valuable tenants,

We have had an experience of small earthquake vibration at 13.28hr today 12 May, 2008. The center of this earthquake was in China and Vietnam has been affected as informed by local authority- The Institute of global geographic. According to them, this earthquake is now still under monitoring and we- Vietnam may receive some small vibrations this afternoon.

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oh oh... the silk dresses in vietnam are pretty..... today, i bought a pretty silk dress that cost me USD25... when my eyes laid upon it, i knew i had to buy it... :P gosh... i didn't want to buy anything today except for the coffee beans for uncle ian... but mannnnn... it's so tempting that me and pei see ended up buying 2 dresses each...

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gurls, you have to buy some dresses when u come here! i'll bring you.... :)

Hong Kong 2008...

After reaching Hanoi for 2 days... one day pretending to be sick (eheh...) and one day pretending to work (ahah...), off we go to Hong Kong.... :) I'm not so rich that I'm travelling around Asia... it's just my company trip... :P

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A really quick trip i felt.... 4 days 3 nights... but in fact, we only had a full 2.5 days to tour around. Thanks to Ben, my KTMB and Sapura gang member back in EY, who was able to bring us around a little to HK island... and to The Peak on the first night.

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Shopping at Esprit was heavenly... much much cheaper than Msia or Hanoi. We went to the outlet on the first night and grabbed a whole load of clothes. On the second day, 5 of us were at the Esprit salon and goshhh.... a bomb landed on our pockets. Additional 10% when we spend above HKD1,200 and another additional 10% as it was my birthday month! All on top of the discounted cheaper prices! How good is that! All in all i think its 50-60% cheaper compared to Msia.... felt so good... ahhaha...

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Disneyland on the third day... M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!! ... the live show of High School Musical and the parade was remarkable. The whole place was amazingly disney? ahha.

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What was good about this trip? I guess it was the shopping...

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Hong Kong... another fast paced city with many going after branded clothings, bags and accesories. You'll have to queue up to get into the LV shop! And after a season, there are those who sell their recently purchased bags for the new fashioned ones. And thus, there are outlets selling second hand branded goods. Makes me thing if they are after the right satisfactions. Will all these branded purchases really give you joy and happiness? I do agree retail therapy satisfy me in a way... feels good to be able to spend and buy pretty looking things, especially after a stressful working period. :) But however, I have to keep in mind that there are other more important things in life. Things that could give me REAL happiness. Will I be happy given a chance to work in HK? I'm thinking probably not...

Beijing 2008...

Beijing 2008....Banners of 'One world, one dream - 同一个世界 同一个梦想' , the official Fuwa mascots... lies all over... well, no chance for us to watch any olympic games, just there to buy olympic keychains!!!

We ate Peking duck, shopped around Wangfuqing Street, ate various food at the stalls, and went to The Great Wall... that's our 3 days trip... The Great Wall however, was magnificient... really a great view... :) Shopping at Wangfuqing wasn't that all great. We didn't manage to buy a lot of things below our expected price but I did manage to spend bomb on some nice jewelleries... I was kinda disappointed that I couldn't buy much that i splurged on 2 fcuk shirts at Oriental Plaza... I should be regretting soon...

Beijing gives me an impression of a city full of history and stories. It is now such an advance city with subways, tall buildings, clean streets, and gosh, the international airport is hugeeee.... One terminal to another was as if we were travelling to another province in vietnam... ahah yea i'm exaggerating. One amazing thing is that people are still freely using bicycles at the streets, a popution-free mode of transport... a total opposite to the massive use of motorcycles in vietnam.

Everything was in chinese and most people on the streets do not speak English. Though I speak mandarin, i wished now i could read. This is where Brian is useful on this trip... ahah... bringing me and 2 other vietnamese around as he was the only one who could readddd all the unrecognisable characters surrounding us everywhere. :P

After 4 weeks in Mongolia, we reached our 'hard-earned' destination... 7 wonders of the world, one down... :) Did we deserve this free 'short trip'??? A definite yes!! I'm still paying for the 'price' - I still have to work on the job from Hanoi... probably on and off for another month.

Weather Forecast...

Today was COLDDDD.... the weather forecast said highest temperature during the day time is to be 16 degrees.. but it felt like ZERO!!!... thank God i decided to change into my boots before we went out. My jacket was definitely not enough... should have worn a thicker jacket...

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We went to visit on of the temples with a lot of buddha statues... and they had the 'turning thing' (don't know what to call it) all over, both small and big. There were monks praying in some of the temples. None of us were Buddhist.. so it didn't really mean anything to us. Some temple was did not have a pleasant smell, but me and colleague just wanted to stay inside longer as it was warmER than outside.... ahah... oooo soo cold... A cup of hot mocha felt so good after that....

There were just plenty of pigeons all over the temples... waiting to be fed... was beautiful... :)

Busy busy busy...

忙了还是忙, 然后继续忙, 过后还是忙, 忙完了.........唉, 还得忙........

I thought to myself today. Will I know how to pass time when I'm no longer an auditor... when I have no office to goto, will I know where to go? How long more can I endure this profesion? Am I stuck already?

We have not been working long hours for the past 3 weeks... going for breakfast at 8.30am, to work at 9am, coming back at 7pm... then to dinner together... back to our room to play, sing, or watch movies... going out in the weekends... simple, having fun with colleagues, learning vietnamese song... this definitely does not happen back in vietnam as there are more different files in the office which we'll have to clear and each of us have our own homes to return to. So in a way, I do have good moments in this cold country...

Our senior manager arrived last night... and during lunch today, we discussed about work and the thought that we only have 4 more days left to finish field work here in Mongolia scares me now. What scares me more in the job waiting for me in Vietnam... sigh... We'll need time to complete this job in Vietnam but no... we don't have any. There are other jobs planned for us... messy accounts waiting for me... I feel tired already... although I know I still have Beijing and Hongkong to enjoy before that... my mind feels exhausted.. in advance... ahah.

When I feel a little relaxed in this cold country, the thought of busyness comes back... this profession is all about being busy, is it?? Is this a reason why I do what I do? To keep myself busy?

I try to console myself... In every bad situation that we're in, there is something to be joyful about, be it a good memory or something new to learn. Good moments leaves a smile on our faces and bad moments makes us stronger to face the coming challenges in life. Yea that's right, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Life in Mongolia...

Why do all messy jobs follow me around???? From Malaysia to Vietnam to Mongolia!!! I just finished a ‘dao dao’ (headache) job in Vietnam whereby the accountant uses excel sheets to record EVERYTHING!!. Man he is such an expert in excel that I’m greatly impressed. But dem it is still messyyy… Tho so messy, the accountant is so funny that I cannot get angry with him.. that’s the best part. Ahah. He’s the only client that comes to our office… to my seat… to settle his outstanding matters.

Here I am doing another messy job where the chief accountant does not know which is her latest trial balance. The Finance Director even asked me if I can work on Saturday to help train their staff re-calculate their depreciation. I’m thinking.. you must me mad.. this is not even my job scope and I don’t even get paid working on weekends and what not in Mongolia where I don’t even get extra allowance for this trip. (We just get a Beijing trip…!! Ehehe).

I don’t know whether I’m really enjoying this trip. Yea we were all very excited to experience snow on our first day and the beautiful country side. This country is cold. The weather, the people, the building, the sceneries… No one smiles in all the pictures we saw at our client’s place. The people here just don’t give me a very friendly impression.

When we went to the Black Market, Brian’s wallet got stolen. And the best part is, after 2 minutes, one guy came to return his wallet to him .. but of cos without all the money. Thank God he distributed some of the money to be before that. The Black Market was indeed impressive.. It’s like an open air Carrefour. Everything under the sun, name it.. they have it… food, clothes, shoes, kitchenwares, cds, sunglasses, electrical appliances, cashmere, etc etc etc… its just a huggeee market. So many things yet we didn’t buy anything other than fruits. Ahah. Well, if I’m staying in Mongolia permanently than I’ll have a lot of things to buy. :P We’re all waiting for our shopping moments in Beijing and Hong Kong. :)

We went to the departmental store yesterday and again we found nothing to buy except souvenirs for our friends. And even that, we found difficulty. Ahha. What’s famous in Mongolia? Let’s see… there’s about 50 million livestock of camel, horses, cows… compared to the 2.8 million human population. So cashmere is their specialty… camel and sheep wool… but man it’s expensive. I saw a nice SMALL camel wool scarf which I am about to buy until I saw the price of 18,000 turiq. That’s like USD15. I can get a normal scarf for USD3 in Hanoi. There’s a lot of nomadic tools made from animal skins, bones, legs… not suitable to buy.. ahah.

The country side trip was good. We paid USD100 for the return trip to Telrej, the National Park for 4 of us. There’s a 300 years old monastery up the mountains. We decided to take the horse ride up to the monastery. When we made the decision, all the local men with their horses just surrounded us asking us to take their horse. Man I hate these situations. Not that I know how a good horse looks like. At last each of us took one horse. It was cheap. The 2 hour horse ride cost us each 5,000 turiq. That’s less than USD5. It was a great experience with painful butts. The scenery is beautiful to begin with.

The monastery has this er… turning thing (picture below).. don’t know what you call it… for good luck. We turned it all.. hoping that all the bad news that I’ve got during this trip will go away. In my head, I know it doesn’t work this way… haih… No matter how far I go, from Penang to KL to Vietnam to Mongolia…. what’s not solved will always be there. Can I accept this fact? I don’t know.. and I can’t think no more.

On Friday night, we went to Strings, a famous night club here. It was good live music by a Pilipino band. I had a little extra to drink. Good dancing floor. Everybody has their ‘undisclosed item’ and maybe I’ve had mine in Mongolia. I’m reminded again that each person is different and unique in their own way. We do not have the capacity to change people around us and that’s not the way to be. I’ve learnt again and again to accept things and people in my life… be it good or bad situations. And yea, its better that way… :) A friend is only a friend when we’re honest to each other.

I really miss the people in Msia now… I’ve spent USD20 talking to people in Msia for the past week over Skype… well half of it goes to my mum. But I really do miss being able to talk and pray about what’s inside. I miss all yam cha sessions. I know I may not be doing what’s best now with all that is going on. I know I need to buckle up and do certain things the way that I’ve done before. I know inside me what is right but right now I just don’t know how I can do what I need to do. It’s confusing even for me to explain. Can I just let it be? Can I… I shouldn’t…

What lies ahead for me is always uncertain to my knowledge. I guess it’s the same for many of us. We do not know the future. My predictions are always wrong… ahha. But there is a God that we can trust. Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I havefor you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Can I just hold on to this verse and let it be?... It’s been almost 6 months since I left KL to venture into a new land of different people, culture, food, and environment. Is this what God has in mind for me? I still can’t answer that.

Life is challenging most of the time. Whatever happens along the way has built me up to who I am today and more to come. Challenges that comes build us stronger.

This is a long entry after two months. Ahah. I finally found some time in the hotel in Mongolia to blog. It’s cold outside and I don’t want to visit anymore museum or monastery. We’ve gone to see the Mongolian historical museum and yesterday the natural museum where I saw dinosaur bones for the first time.

First snow experience...

Mongolia... it was amazing that we could experience snow on our first day... it stopped snowing after that day...

It's a cold place noww... the amazing thing is that its cold and yet very sunny during the day time. The heating system is good. We do not feel cold at all indoors. People are generally big as they eat a lot of meat. We have been eating heaving meaty meals for the past 5 days that today we stayed back in the hotel to have instant noodles for dinner.. ahah..

The Peak

In general, the best time to spot an auditor is during the so-called Audit Season which runs from January to April. Auditors with their distinctive pin-stripe plumage will be present in large numbers in all major offices, factories and places of work. If you think you have seen an auditor, approach with caution. Avoid making eye contact, as this may be viewed as antagonistic. Should the auditor begin to behave aggressively towards you, asking what proportion of your contingent liabilities you consider probable, the best advice is to shout "Enron!" and run very fast in the opposite direction. This will make the auditor in question shrivel up and die. (Retrieved from "http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Auditor")

Well well, it's now the peakest period in audit firms... In Viet Nam, the reporting deadlines for most companies falls on 31 March. I haven't been blogging much lately tho there are much I wan to say about life here.

Audit packs have their own dens, known as home offices. The pack visits the office on average once a month, in order to refuel on stationery. Auditors can survive several days and nights without water, sex or sunlight but are liable to fall seriously ill if deprived of paper clips and yellow post-its.

I wake up at approximately 7 am daily... take a hot shower. This hot shower keeps me awake for the morning. I put on my jacket, scarf and a full face helmet and leave the house with Bryan on his bike at 7.45 am. I enjoy the morning air... but not the horns and traffic we have to go through. I still get 'heart attacks' on the way. I wonder I will ever ride a bike here.

.. reach the office at about 8am.. gather my team... and we head on to client's office by taxi. As most of my clients are manufacturing companies, they are mostly at industrial zones or provinces. Unlike in Msia, they serve us lunch here. Some good, some eatable, some makes u hungry by 3pm. At my current client, well, I have to say the food sucks... On the 2nd day, all of us brought biscuits, chips, sausages and made sure we ate breakfast for the day.

Unlike Msia as well, it is the practice of the staffs to leave the clients premise at 5pm. I like this practice. I get tired by 5pm and time for a break, have some chats before finishing what I have to finish. I have to say, some of my junior staffs have been very helpful and smart as well. I've learnt a lot of Vietnamese from them and more to come I hope. The A1s I work with have been good and I appreciate the help that they offer voluntarily. Tho communicating in English may not be as fluent, I learnt to be patient and understanding. (But today, man I wanted to ask my intern to just shutup and listen to me... this doesnt happen all the time la... but sometimes yea.. i do get fethup as well... sometimes I turn to my A1s and say... 'can you pls help me to explain to her'... and I leave the spot to get some fresh air... sometimes i'd just say...'ok ok .. em hieu (i understand)... no need to continue, I'll do it myself''...) There have been good helpful people as well as people who are irresponsible and doesn't give a damn on what they produce. I thank God that most of my team members have been nice to work with... even the bad ones... I enjoyed playing blackjack with one very irresponsible staff of mine... ahha... after working with me on 3 jobs, he finally resigned! haha.

The peak season here has been tiring as in KL... leaving my house at 7am and reaching home at 11pm... going back to office on both Saturdays and Sundays. One client each week... different location each week...it's tiring to manage... Next week, I'll be going to Hai Duong province, about an hour drive away from Ha Noi, for 2 weeks on 2 different clients... It has basically nothing there. The last time we were there, for the whole week, we went from the clients office and back to the hotel and back to clients the next day and it goes on for a week. And that's when we started to play blackjack... ahaha.

The culture here is rather people oriented compared to KL. You feel that the partners and directors do care about the employees. We have staff parties quite often and recently my director treated us for a karaoke session for us to destress during the peak period. She even went along with us. The partners and directors take turns to stay up till 10pm to make sure that staffs are not over worked unncessarily.

ok... its 1am now... i'll continue nx time... :) till then... oh yea.. the weather has been better these days.. not so cold as the previous weeks... it was like 6 degrees before and after CNY... its now about averagely 15 - 18 degrees.

Brian, me and Dennis taking a break on the roof top of our office building on a Sunday afternoon...

CNY / TET 2008...

Well, well.. today is chap goh meh.. the last day of chinese new year celebration... we had bak kut teh for dinner here at Ha Noi and of cosss it taste better is Msia... :P but good enough.

Nine days spent in Msia for CNY this year... :) it was good to be back... i'm missing it already... the people, the weather... it's been very cold here... it went as low as 3 - 6 degrees...

Steamboat has like been the 'only' meal ppl prepare during CNY in Penang... I've had 3 steamboats in the 1 week at home, Molly had 7 steamboat sessions in 4 days. Similarly, in Ha Noi, hot pots are popular. Hot pot = Steamboat. Something that I enjoy these days :), with seafood... :P

Steamboat @ Molly's

CBM girls reunion...
the 'in-between' hits the girls...
'lou sang' @ Hanoi home...

the food... it's definitely more than enough for 7 of us..
Hai Long and his winnings... from 'in between' again... in Msia, we played RM0.10 a game, in Ha Noi, it's VND10,000!!! ahaha.. (it's not that small as it sounds, its equivalent to RM2 a game)