In Helsinki, Finland

After 5 weeks back home in Singapore, doing the local projects, which were extremely busy (it was almost as good as not being in Singapore). Hardly seeing any friends. However, I managed to take a couple of days off to KL with my family to attend my sister graduation. I was a nice short break (but never enough).

Once again, I’m on the road and currently in Helsinki for a week, beside it’s freezing my ass off and it’s hardly seeing any daylight here. The sky starts to brighten up at around 1030am (which is still not very bright as well) and darken again around 230pm. So I guess this is a country ideally for Vampire to live in…lol. Anyway, I managed to take a short walk into the city yesterday and it was quite nice and I love the local shopping centers here, which sell a lot of local brands.

I’m quite disappointed in a way because I missed the Singapore ZoukOut of the second consecutive years! I need to start to plan my leave for next year.

Next project is at Kunshan, China which I’m not looking forward to it. Although it’s about an hour away by car to Shanghai, there is literally nothing there! Apparently the nearest convenient store is 20 minutes away by taxi!) Which mean, there would be much Christmas and NY celebration!. It’s going to be a busy project as well. But then, I’m looking forward to then end of the project because I will be going home for 2 weeks holidays for my Chinese New Year!!.

Finishing Munich, Going to Egypt.

Last day of my project today and tomorrow I’ll be flying off to Egypt (again). It has been an enjoyable project very really tiring as well. Will be Egypt for 3 weeks and the flying back home (YEAH!!). This time, I will be home for at least 2 months because I’m doing the 2 projects in Singapore. Thinking of planning a shopping trip to Bangkok during Christmas :)

Last Day of Oktoberfest!

Yes. After several attempts, this will be our last chance to the Oktoberfest. Our local friends told us that, Sunday will be a good day to go because most of the tourist will be left by then.

So, 2 of our friends (the same people) were very ‘kiasu’ so they turned up at the tent at 9am. However, it was too early for us to start drinking, so we went for some sightseeing again.

We went to the Concentration Camp at Dachau. It was quite an interesting trip, seeing the camp, the museum, the jailhouse, thinking back during the WWII, how many people was suffer and kill at that camp.

After visiting the camp, we were feeling kinda depressed and felt how lucky we are today.

Therefore, we head to Oktoberfest for our last beer. It was quite a weird combination day that we had. We arrived at the tent at 5pm and we managed to get in and found our friends, who are already very drunk. It was still very crowded. I had 2 ½ liter of Beer and having so much fun in the tent. After that, we went up to the roller coster and some other ‘dangerous’ rides. It was extremely funny on the ride when we were drunk. Of course, couple of my friends felt really sick afterwards.

Anyway, this was my first Oktoberfest and I really enjoyed it :)

Drunk on Roller Coster....

Last Oktoberfest Weekend!

On Thursday evening, we returned back to the Oktoberfest thinking of getting ourselves pissed again. However, because Friday is a bank holiday here, so it was really crowded and all the tents were closed and there were many people queuing outside the tents. We queued for a good half an hour and decided it ain’t gonna happen again today. So end up, we returned home sober and disappointed.

On Saturday, we decided to go a little bit early, so we went to Oktoberfest at 11am. 2 of our friends were already there, queuing up for half an hour. So we decided to join the queue but the queue was even longer than then Thursday night! But then, we still wanna try to get in. However, after 30 minutes, me and another friend decided we are not going to waste our time in the queue, and it’s getting cold and it’s raining soon…….So we left and went to do some sightseeing. Another 2 friends of ours still wanna tried their luck so they continue to wait in the queue under the rain and freezing cold weather.

We went to BMW museum and Olympia Park. It was quite interesting.

So we check back with the boys, they waited for 4 hours and still couldn’t get in but then they met new friends while in the queue and got pissed in town later on.

Inside the Tent at Oktoberfest!

Newly Recruited Oktoberfest Azubi! Prost!

One good thing about my job is that you get to travel around the world, to visit the city that you always dream of and to the city that you’d never thought of visiting even for a holiday, but at least you get to see it once – Been There! Done That!

And the best thing is when you are doing a project in a city with good festive going on. This is the best time to visit Munich because of the Oktoberfest. Millions of visitor flew in from all over the world to join the Bavarians to get pissed together. Everybody is in their best ‘drunken’ mode and all dress up for the festive season.

I had my first taste of Oktoberfest last night. We were invited by the hotel team to join them in the evening. So after we finished work at 7:30pm, we arrived at the Oktoberfest at 8:00pm. First, I was overwhelmed when I arrived at the location. It was ‘people mountain people sea’ on a weekday night already. Secondly, I never saw so many drunken people in my life (which eventually I was one of them at the end of the night). There were a lot of activities going on like a big funfair and there were 12 big tents at the location. Each tent can accommodates 10,000 drunken people - singing and dancing on the their bench, holding their 1 liter glass of beer in their hand. The empty glass was very heavy and the waitress can hold at least 12 glasses in their hand. There was a big band playing different kind of music and everybody is enjoying a good time there.

Because we didn’t have dinner, so after 2 glasses of beer, I was already very drunk. Luckily the fest finished at 11pm, otherwise, I’d pass out somewhere on the floor. By that time, 95% of the crowds were completed wasted. Some of the festive goers were already there since the tent open at 11am!

It was a good night fun and I’m still hangover when I’m writing this. We are going back this weekend with more people and this time, we will prepare for the event :)

October Fest In Munich

Finished Vienna and was in Mainz for a week. Now I'm in Munich for the next 3 weeks. We are going to October Fest next weekend. Supposedly today but I wasn't feeling very well, so decided we go next weekend since there will be a couple more team mates joining us.

Went out to town yesterday and it was pretty crowded. It was amazing to see people dressing up for the October Fest and drunken people walking around in the city (at noon time already).

Getting Cold....

The weather is getting cold here now.

So far, this project has been very good. I'm working with quite a fun team this time. A lot of laughter and jokes, that makes a project a lot easier. However, I'm working on night shift again for this project. The night shift is quite ok. It's a lot easier than the day shift. But then, it is hard to stay awake the whole night and I'm too old for this now (need my regular 'handsome' sleep) and it is hard to sleep through the day.

Anyway, I'm quite looking forward to my next project in German because my German team mate is going to take me to the October Fest!! (Need to train up that......drinking more beers!)