Almaty, Kazakhstan

I’ve been in Almaty, Kazakhstan for 2 days now, and it is quite interesting....My brother has been here since February due to his work with the UN, and so mom, dad and myself jumped at the opportunity to visit him and a country we would never otherwise have visited.

Let’s just get straight to the highlights..

1.    English? No..Russian

No one here speaks English. Neither are any of the signs in English. Not even touristy areas have a single word of English anywhere. I realised that Kazakhstan was going to be one visual adventure – absorbing images, sign languages and figuring it out myself. I’ve started to learn phrases, like spasibah, skolka, etc, but you still get very very lost in translation...

       The City

Personally I see Almaty as a cross between Klaipeda and Moscow. It is very spacious and spread out, and you tend to come across incredibly large and majestic looking buildings like in Moscow. It is also reminiscent of the Soviet era, so you also come across mass produced eye sore buildings like the ones I’ve seen in the Baltic states. The youth here exude a kind of attitude I remember seeing while I was in Klaipeda. I don’t quite know how to put it into words yet to explain this observation, but it’s almost like a newfound independence, and they strut around with huge smiles and a swagger in their strides.

3.    The people

Kazakhstan is incredibly diverse. You have Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Russians, Uyghurs, etc, and you have minorities such as Germans, Kurds, and Koreans. These minorities did not migrate straight from their countries, but rather migrated to Russia around 1800s and then emigrated or were deported from Russia to Kazakhstan in the 1900s as a result of the Soviet Union era.

4.    Taxis

I was greeted at the Almaty airport by my brother and dad who then led me to a “taxi” which was an ordinary car with a guy sitting in front with his girlfriend. I learnt that it is quite common, that when you are looking for a taxi, you stick out your hand and wait for any resident to stop. You state your destination, haggle, and get into the car. It’s sort of a way for the locals to make money, and for the foreigner to get a good price. I get the impression that is is really common, and not dangerous.

.     The Green Bazaar

This is probably one of the most organised and cleanest markets I’ve ever seen. There are sections allocated to each type of food, so a section is allocated to dried fruit and nuts, another to fresh fruit and vegetables, and another to butchers selling meat. Each section has rows and rows of vendors selling similar items.

This was also where I experience Kazakh hospitality (or maybe sales, aha) for the first time.

I approached one of the dried fruit and nut vendors, and he was quick to pass me on samples of pistachios, almonds, dried apricots, etc. He amused me by going  “OoozbekistAaaan” pointing to the pistachios from Uzbek, and going  “KItai” pointing to the pistachios from China over and over again. After weighing the pistachios I wanted, I was keen on paying and moving on. But no, he would not let me. He kept handing out samples to my entire family. When I shook my head, he‘d look very very angrily at us and extend his arm again and look terribly offended. How could I refuse? He then invited me behind the counter to take a picture with him. By that time, we had already caused a scene in the market and had every vendor watching us.

      Medeu, Shimbulak, Big Almaty Lake

On Sunday, Reuben’s colleague was kind enough to drive us up to the mountains. Roman is a local and took us to Medeu and Shimbulak, areas known for the winter sports and ski resorts in. We then proceeded to the Big Almaty Lake, a mountain lake surrounded from all sides by the majestic mountains. The lake was still half frozen, although the temperature was mild enough for me to wear shorts. Amazing scenery..It was also really nice having him around to translate certain things for us and tell us more about the history of Almaty. 

We're off to south west of Kazakhstan tomorrow to the Aksu-Zhabagly nature reserve for the next 4 days...

By the way, at 8:31am today I felt a very deep rumble around me. I shouted to my brother, was that an earthquake?! Yes it was. It wasn't very strong, and mom and dad actually missed it.  Turns out it a 5.4 magnitude earthquake had hit the southeast of Kazakhstan, about 77km from Almaty. Just read the news, and there has been a total of 5 tremors today! No casualties have been reported. 

Do I have to grow up?

The whole Jeremy Piven incident has made me nostalgic about the days when I was a teenager...

So when I was 13 - 17 years of age, I was madly in love with the local theater scene. I used to watch all kinds of plays with Hana. Hana and I went to high school together, and found each other due to our love for theater. None of our other friends cared for sitting through a 2 hour play.

There was a local production group called The Instant Cafe Theatre, and we made it a point to watch EVERY single show they put on. We fell in love with Jit Murad, Paula Malai Ali, Chae Lian, and many others.

We probably went to about 8 shows a year.. After every single theater performance, we would stay back, wait for the actors to come out so we could talk them to death, take pictures, and get yet ANOTHER autograph specific to the playbill.

Which brings me to a memory I was reminiscing about this evening:

We were 17, and there was a spare moment between the end of a play and when the actors were to come out. I looked over at Hana and said something like "Oh Hana, I want to be 17 years forever. When we grow up, how will we easily justify this silliness?" We looked at each other sadly, realising that our days of being young and acting silly with the actors were coming to an end.

Hana and I had dreams. We also made a bet that whoever made it first to the Actor's Studio gets 50 Malaysian dollars. She made it first.

I have to give major props to Hana. Due to the old folks not wanting to disrupt the status quo in Malaysia, she was asked to pursue medicine. Halfway through her course, she returned to Malaysia and pursued acting. She is now in Boston studying music at Berklee.

Let's not talk about what happened to me...

I'm going to leave you with a picture of Hana and I in our first play together. :)

Group shot with the cast!

Vegas, Friends and Sons

The company I work with was amazing enough to send 800 of us to Las Vegas for the annual kick-off event (April 15-18). I really don't care about recreations of the Eiffel tower, nor care about a large concrete hotel made to feel like you're in Italy. Nor do casinos excite me.

However, Las Vegas was an epic trip of all sorts for the following reasons:

1. People

I'm always excited to see the folks I previously worked with in US.

M, I absolutely adore, and I owe her so much for taking over Joey when I had to leave US. We keep in touch weekly, takes good care of me whenever I am in Philly, and she is the best! A, is the sweetest and one of the most genuine persons around. He is my go to person whenever I'm having a roller coaster day and has helped so much when I had to leave suddenly and was at a loss with what to do with the apartment and mail. Haha, really, thanks A! And there are so many others, the ones who had started when I did, who have now transitioned into new roles, my virtual EU team, the petal teams I worked with in London, the Rik&Maarten Dutch team I had recently gotten to know, my newly found tech team, and the ones I keep an eye out purely out of personal interest,...e.g. the Kuala Lumpur office!

The company event went on for 4 days. There wasn't a moment where we did nothing. It was either, presentations, workshops, trying to catch up as much as possible, meeting new colleagues, and trying to get 4 hours (which is a very decent amount) of sleep each night.

2. Mumford & Sons, and Jeremy Piven (major credit goes to Sara Davar for this)

The night before we were due to fly out to Vegas, I hear from SD that she had the pleasure of sitting next to Ted from M&S on her flight from NYC to Vegas. She was frantic on the phone. I went nuts. She tells me that he is the loveliest most humble person on earth,  and that they chatted for hours. We knew beforehand that they were going to perform at our hotel, but didn't secure tickets. Truthfully speaking, I at least knew about the hype surrounding the band, and did try listening to their music, but the context was never there, so I wasn't really into them. She then tells me that he's put her +2 on the guest list and that we have to go.

Come Friday, I arrived in Vegas, mingled, listened, and at around 10pm, SD grabs me and we venture off to the gig with Brandon.

The guys from M&S are musical geniuses. They are better live than on a studio recording. They soaked up the energy from the crowd, and returned the favor. I became a fan.

After the gig, we went looking for them. After explaining the situation over and over, we finally get to their private area, and Ted comes out to greet us. He invited us in to have some drinks with the band. True enough, SD's comments about Ted were spot on. He didn't even act like a celebrity. He was funny, down to earth and hospitable! I became a bigger fan.

Now, another amazing moment occurs when SD goes "Ruth, did you not see him?". I'm like "Who? Where? What?". She goes "The guy from Entourage!". She knows how much I love Entourage and I had been talking her ear off about the show earlier this year. I turn around expecting to see Adrian Grenier, but even better, it's Jeremy Piven! HooOooly. I go absolutely nuts in my insides, and really had to master everything I had not to show it. It just wasn't the place to act like a screaming fan. Unfortunately he was quite involved with the other band members. Truthfully I didn't trust myself to be calm enough to talk to him sensibly.

Vegas certainly felt like a dream. We didn't have a spare minute to stop for a moment, and think about the days that transpired, that when we returned, a lot of us thought, did Las Vegas just happen?

Dazzling Lights...

I'm off to Las Vegas tomorrow. It's almost midnight, and the excitement has just started to build up. No..I'm not excited about seeing Vegas.. I spent a few days there 4 years ago. It was fun, but I'm not too much a fan of casinos, and concrete surroundings (think Dubai). I do try out gambling when I happen to be in a casino, but then get bored after 5 minutes.

I'm excited because I get to see my American colleagues who have become friends after all these years!! We keep in touch weekly, but it's not the same as seeing their faces. The first few hours will be spent trying to find the familiar faces in a sea of 800 employees, plus the tourists around us. Ahhhhhhh...I promised a friend I'd be his gambling buddy, yea I hate gambling, but it'll be sooo fun!

I was thinking today, every time I step into the US, I go through some kind of experience for the first few minutes. For me, having lived there for 5 years, US represents so many things I admire. Tenacity, ambition, audaciousness. I may be presumptuous here having only lived in UK for 2 years, but UK and Malaysia are similar in some ways - Class, constraint, a held back attitude for fear of disrupting the status quo.

Going back to these few minutes, I honestly feel a kind of heaviness lifted off my shoulders. I soak in my surroundings, take a deep breath, and feel like I'm off to conquer the world.

Anyway...

Next time you hear from me, I might have a tattoo somewhere and a ring on my finger, and trying to dig myself out of some kind of trouble.. ;)

Going Dutch

Amsterdam

Soundtrack - Snow Patrol's Up To Now album

Last time I was in Netherlands was back in 2006 just like the last time I was in Germany before the recent trip to Berlin. 

How I feel towards Netherlands is quite different from Germany. In 2006, we spent an entire month there and Netherlands was in the middle of our 10 week trip, so friendships were already formed and we became closer and closer. In Netherlands, we hung out every second, watched the world cup together, jammed on the keyboard and guitar, biked to nearby towns, to Belgium and into the late hours of the night, studied, snuck into private tennis courts and of course some other things which aren't meant for public domain. We explored Oisterwijk, Den Haag, Tilburg, Delft, Amsterdam and Utrecht. 

For the reasons above, I have an affection for Netherlands, and couldn't help reminisce before and during this trip to Amsterdam. A glimpse into the past:

So random story during this 2011 trip while on my way to a Breda. Along the way I passed a field while on a bus and something went off in my head. It was the very field where Mike and I ended up one day when we decided to skip class (or maybe a tour). It was almost as if the scene was copied from my past and pasted into the present and I could see us on the field, kicking the grass, throwing twigs, and talking about random stuff.

Enough with the past. So this time around, it was pretty hectic. I spent my nights prepping, and the days travelling to meetings. First day was spent travelling to a meeting in Breda, and second day on meetings in Amsterdam with a few hours spent out of our office there. 

Let's spend a moment on the biking scene in Amsterdam. So we all know that everyone here bikes right? Oh my, the cyclists here are serious. In London, they observe traffic lights. In Amsterdam? Haha. Not really. My colleague commented on my observation and goes, "We have two rules here. 1. Always be on the move as long as you 2. don't hit a car or a pedestrian. Stick to that... and you're fine."  

During the evening on my way from the office to the train station, my colleague offered me a ride on his bike, with my suitcase. He dumps my suitcase on this L shape thing on the front of the bike and starts biking with me still standing on the street. I'm like "what about me??" he goes " you're supposed to hop on NOW." I'm thinking how the heck... I stop thinking  and jump on the backseat. He goes "um you're supposed to sit on it with two legs to one side."  really? I was already in panic mode and told him to just go. During the ride, I kept marvelling out loud at his balancing skills with me on the backseat and suitcase on the front. He goes "I'm a Dutch boy you know? We are different from the rest. So you like Dutch boys now eh?" aha, my fear went away. 

Prior to the bike ride, my colleagues took me to a really nice pub by one of the main canals for drinks. There, I was introduced to La chouffe, a pretty awesome Belgian beer, and Bitterballen, a Dutch snack which is a fried meatball filled with minced beef and ragout. Grreat combination!

Some other things I learned and observed...

1. In Netherlands you always introduce yourself on the phone as soon as the person on the other end picks up the phone. So e.g even when you order pizza, you go "hi my name is Jane Doe, I would like ...."

2. They kiss thrice when greeting you. I'm now used to the way Brits kiss once on the cheek, and the way the Spanish and Italians kiss twice but can't help stifling a giggle (simply because I'm not used to it) when my colleagues take the time to go muah, muah, and muah. 

Thank you to my colleagues for a lovely evening by the canals, introducing me to La chouffe and Bitterballs! 

To everyone from the IBI trip, we've all gone our separate ways and some of us still keep in touch. I hope you are all well and thanks for the memories...

Fat Tuesday in Gothenburg

So I'm in Gothenburg at the moment.

It was 3pm, and the team and I were locked in a serious discussion. A guy knocks on the door, and starts talking to my boss in Swedish, "fdhsufhduigfdsi" he says and shuts the door.

We resume our discussion. My boss starts to give his input, as if he were adding on to the discussion and goes "So in Scandinavia, we have this thing called Fettisdagen, otherwise known as Fat Tuesday". He turns to me, the only non-Scandinavian in the room. "This is an excuse to eat FAT FOOD. And to celebrate, the office has bought some fat food for everyone. Let's go into the kitchen!" Whaaat? Fat Tuesday?

I rushed out in excitement, not knowing what to expect. I was really really excited. Fat Tuesday? Fat Tuesday!!

A table full of Semla pastry greeted me. So what is Semla? It looks like a hamburger on that picture, but it's really a bun filled with almond paste, and topped with whipped cream. Nico explained that traditionally, you dip the whole thing in a bowl of milk, and eat the mix with a spoon. I nod respectfully, but then he goes "Gross!".

Fat Tuesday really is Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day in United Kingdom.

It is in fact the first day of Lent and it is wonderful how each country has its own tradition. (Madeira for example, has a tradition of eating fried doughnuts!)

That Semla was filling and delicious, but there's a very good reason why it is eaten once a year!

Berlin

I was in Germany last in 2006 with 40 students from university. We visited Cologne, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. The memories from that trip were incredible, but when it comes to remembering what the cities looked like, I have to think really hard.

Work brought me to Berlin on Thursday and Friday. I absolutely loved it. When anyone travels, I think there are two main things that enhance a person's experience.

1. The people

2. How different that city is in relation to where you grew up, or where you've traveled to in the past.

It was for the above reasons that I loved it.

Firstly, the people. The administrator at the conference I attended made a positive comment about German hospitality and she was right!

On my way from the Berlin Schoenefeld Airport to Potsdam, I was highly amused when on two different occasions, I was literally growled at by two female workers at two different train stations while trying to get directions in English. They then proceeded to laugh and tried their best to help me out. I realized that the growling probably occurred because they were frustrated that we couldn't converse properly?

Upon arriving at Potsdam, I got lost again, and asked the first person who gave me eye contact for directions. After using a mixture of German/English/sign language, he realized that I wasn't getting it. He then kindly shoved me to the trams, and proceeded to accompany me on my short trip to the hotel! I was then highly amused and very touched when we got off the tram, and while I could clearly see that the hotel was just in front of me across the road, he tried his best to explain how best to cross the road, and that I should use the ramp instead of the stairs with my luggage! I must've looked like the worst lost person he'd ever come across!

On Friday, as I was trying to get from Potsdam to Berlin, I proceeded to stop at this sausage deli for lunch. Now, anyone who knows me, knows how much I love sausages. Oh heavenly. Sausages, sauerkraut and potatoes. Oh my lord! I sat down with my meal and realized that I didn't have any cutlery or napkins needed to devour this thing. The deli was incredibly busy, and I was at a loss. This old man in front of me, in sign language, directed me to the cutlery station, and then to the napkin station on the other end. He then laughed and gave me a thumbs up signaling that I was now ready to eat! What a sweetie pie!

Secondly, the city. Upon leaving the hotel, I had 3 hours to spare before my flight back to London, so I decided to walk around Berlin for a bit. I downloaded all the free apps I could find on Berlin and got a good idea of where I wanted to go.

I decided to focus on the area South of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof where I would be able to walk down Eberstrabe and see the main landmarks - The Reichstag House, the Brandenburg gate, the Holocaust monument - and end up at Potsdamer Platz.

The holocaust monument - Field of Stelae- was incredible. It is an area the size of two football fields filled with 2711 concrete blocks. It is a pretty controversial monument; not many saw the need for it. I as a foreigner, disagree and think it's worth every life that was lost in the war. It's designed in such a way so that as you walk down a row of blocks, the ground slopes downwards, and the blocks get taller. So initially, as you enter a row, a block is the height of your knee, and in the middle, a block is 8 feet high. So the monument is meant to symbolize the fragility of the Jews, and as you walk through the pathways you are meant to feel trapped and uncertain of what's around the corner. I spent a good 20 minutes soaking in the experience and listening to Kreuzberg by Bloc Party on repeat.

My last stop was Potsdamer Platz. It used to be no man's land between East and West Germany, but has now been transformed to becoming Berlin's commercial center. It definitely sounded and looked like the Canary Wharf of Berlin. :) Sure the buildings were great, modern, and of great design, but I was more interested to see the remains of the wall. I get really silly with things that don't exist anymore, and there in front of you, you have a fragment of what's left. And so I stood in front of the 5 pieces of concrete wall, and stared and stared, at the graffiti, and let my imagination run wild.

Shame I didn't have more time on my hands. I would've attempted to experience the afternoon Kaffee and Kuchen culture!

Potsdamer Platz: