Bodhi Bum

So where does this fine winter day in the new year of 2006 find me?


My Home Away From Home in Knutsford. Ok, so it's the only home I've got.

Well, I'm now resident in a tiny, sleepy little English town called Knutsford. Not the most reconizable of cities and definitely not on the tourist trail, but this little place is kinda hidden gem way off the tourist path.

I had some misgivings when my company told me that they were sending me to someplace called Knutsford, especially since the last time I was working in the greater Manchester area was last year exactly this time and I ended up in the Industrial area of Oldham which is famous for nothing more than the race riots between Pakistani and British National party (read Nazi) members. Thankfully this place is nothing like Oldham, and is actually a kind of agricultural area turned bedroom community for the rich and famous of Manchester.


The Mansion. This place is huge and hard to believe one family actually lived there. The place is amazing and the grounds are huge.

From my digging and visit today to the Historical Center of Knutsford, I've found out that the unfortunate name of this tiny town is actually taken from a Danish king called "Canutsford" who forded the river Lily in 1016 to help establish the town. Their other famous temporary resident is the American General "Blood and Guts" Patton who was here in 1943 with his men to prepare for the invasion of France in World War II. Strangely enough, just by chance I was wandering the town yesterday and came across the old American Recreation Center where the American soldiers relaxed with the local women before the hell of the mainland Europe invasion.


The famous General Patton spent time in little Knutsford. Actually, from wandering in Tatton Park I found out that Patton and the British practiced parachuting in the middle of the big fields to prepare for the invasion of France where they had to parachute in.

Cows with free reign of Tatton Park. The deer were more impressive, but the batteries in my camera ran out on Sunday right before I saw them

This is a really tiny town of about 25,000 and has a ton of history. The town center itself is really nothing more than two streets (King Street and Queen Street), with an old 1200 year or so church. But you can tell that it's really, really posh. I wasn't sure why at first, but quickly figured it out when I was told to go check out Tatton Park which is right off the main street.

Beautiful wide open spaces. But jets passing over every two minutes. Tatton Park is right in the flight path of Manchester airport. And they wake me up at night too in my hotel.

This is a huge, huge park with Tatton Mere (big lake and swamps) and the best preserved Victorian Mansion and estate in Britain with a massive Victorian garden. I spent the day yesterday hiking Tatton Park and checking out the Garden along with all the stressed out Manchester workers who have come back home to the countryside and spend their days letting off steam in the park.

Free land in Britain to hike is tough to find and here there is a ton of it. It's an amazing park with huge herds of deer roaming free around the park, people fishing in the Meer and tons of people riding horseback. A pretty nice place to live I'd say, and since my hotel is about a minute walk from the park entrance I'll be taking full advantage of it.


Fishing in the Meer. It looks like a Northern Ontario trout lake, but in reality is only a small depression in the field that filled with water.

So yesterday I hiked the park and checked out the gardens (mostly the Japanese gardesn since they were rated as the best Japanese gardens outside of Japan).


The Gardens of the Mansion. The Posh Astrocats own private lake.

Today I woke up early and had my usual Full English (free) at the hotel and then took a run for an hour out in the park to burn off those sausages and blood pudding. I actually got a new addition to my Full English today, fried toast. Never had that one before, and it raised the greasy goodness of a Full English breakfast up another notch. Toast soaked and fried in butter. Yumm. It was so good that I knew it was shortening my life about a year every bite so I had to leave half of it on the plate.


The Japanese Gardens. I went tramping through the japanese gardens looking for the perfect picture before the park warden saw me and less than politely asked me to get back over the line.

So the hotel is quaint Victorian and very nice, the work is boring but easy (until the Q1 2006 work kicks off and I'll be missing these boring work days), I've got nature at my doorstep, and life is good. Until next time.

Well, it was a great Christmas back home.

I worked right up until a few days before the big day at the San Francisco contract, and took a flight home on the 22nd to Toronto.

What can I say about the holidays, except that it was great to be home and no holiday will ever beat the annual Christmas family event. Some things change and the years keep rolling on, but the one constant will always be family and Christmas and coming home.

It's easy to travel the world and be a transient hobo when you've got one stable grounding thing in your life which you always come back to. Once a year. Every year.

But alas the holidays always come to an end and you have to go back to the real world of work. For me that means hopping a plane and doing a marathon cross Canada/US flight to San Francisco, then catching my return leg back across both countries and over the ocean to the UK. Back to work, but after a great two weeks at home I can handle it.

Just a quick update here to put up some pics of the last few weeks. Not much new lately besides work work and more work. Thanksgiving two weekends ago and a great break and home with the family. Now it's Saturday night tonight and another 10 days or so until home back to Canada for Christmas. It's been about five straight months of work since my summer holiday back home with the fam, so I'm must about do a break for two weeks for the holidays.

The pics are from last weekend out to see Alcatraz. An overdone tourist thing for sure, but still was a really cool thing to do. It was cool to be out on the Rock and to get the whole history with the headphone walkthrough. Amazing some guys lived out there for twenty plus years with this amazing city of SF right outside the window of their cell. Would have drove me nuts to have that at my fingertips, but not be able to touch it.

Also got some pics of the Annual Snowball for the client I'm working for. It was held on Friday night at City Hall. They had buses running from the office down to Hall. And it was a great spread of food, and a fun party. The building itself was incredible, but we cut out close to the end and went clubbing.

Anyways, just working this weekend. I'm gonna take a few hours tomorrow afternoon to check out Berkely University across the Bay.

Bodhi

Sunday and wine is a great mix. Especially if it's at 10:00 in the morning. Like the tour guide said, it's 5 o'clock somewhere. Good excuse for getting buzzed before lunch. I like this high-so wine tasting thing. You can take little sips and talk about bouquets and nuts and fruits and stuff, and pretend you're all cultured and important. But in the end you end up pissed anyways and feel like you're more cultured for it. The little power naps on the bus between the wineries are a bonus.

We got picked up by about 8:30 this morning and was pleasently surprised by nice bus. A bit of a step up from the little mini-van that took us out to Yosemite last weekend. Plus it was only a short little hour ride out to to Sonoma and the first winery, rather than a four hour drive before, so it was a much better and more relaxing trip.

We arrived at the first winery in Sonoma which was a mid-sized operation run by one of the original wine families in the area from an old wine family from Italy. The third generation son broke away from the family and went back to his roots and only uses old world Italian grapes. We sampled some of the grapes right off the vine, and the tasting room had a ton of free pesto and sauce samples. So it was a nice buffet of food and wine.

The next place we moved on to was in Napa valley, and the valley is a pretty interesting place. It's only five miles wide at the start, and one mile at the end. But the entire length of the valley is wall to wall grape vines. From what the tour guide said it takes big money to grow grapes and to make the wines, and it cost more to buy the land in Napa than most places to buy the land and make a house and start a gold mine in the backyard.

It was a great tour, and after the second wine tasting most people were getting pretty tipsy and friendly. It's amazing how a tour of Yosemite most of the tour group is just snapping pics and keeping to themselves. You give tourists five or six wine samples and they become your long lost friend. Not to mention the tour guide decided he was Mr. matchmaker and preceded to try to hook up all the single tourists on the bus. Good thing I was in a group of four since he figured being two girls and two guys we were hooked up. I feel sorry for the young New Zealand guy who got matched up with every divorcee in the bus.

Good day and good experience. I've always wanted to go to Napa and it's another wish destination crossed off the list. I was first here in San Francisco back in 2001, and Napa was big on my list of places to visit. I didn't get the chance back then, but this time I managed to strike that one off. My list is steadily getting shorter and I'm working my way through. I think it was a good thing that I waited before seeing Napa, as doing it now I have the relative comparison of seeing the old world wine country of Bavaria in Germany (Schwabian red wine country) and Beaujolais in France to compare to. It's amazing the difference in the culture and attitude between the old and new world. Mind you. I'm not quite a wine snob yet. Close. But not quite yet.

Bodhi

Life is a strange, strange thing. It's funny sometimes when you sit back and look around, and look out the window and think about where you've ended up in this life. You fill up the days with work and lunch and coffee breaks and the clock ticking down, and playing interested, and staring out the window, and holding on to focus, focus is wandering, take a breath, two more meetings, mental picture of a hazy beach, ok, half hour left, everyone leaving the office, and you can finally breathe, and the short walk home to this place, which is now home... and how the hell did I end up in this place. Let alone this view.

Saturday night and I'm feeling introspective. It was a good day and the workweek is done. Time to enjoy this great city by the sea, and enjoy the downtime. It was a busy week and work and the pressure is starting to pile up as the deadlines approach. But the work is manageable and deadlines are always make to be broken. Especially when you're working in the audit department and you write the controls that others have to live by.

I had a great day today exploring the city. It was farmers market morning just outside my new apartment down by the ferry terminal market. Stocked up on Organic produce. Not cheap, but I'll be eating veggies for a few weeks. I was told that Prince William and Camilla would be stopping by the farmers market, so I figured I would go Organic and support my local farmers. Support the little man working on the family farm, screw the littleler man not lucky enough to be part of the land of the free and home of the subsidized. But Prince Charles is here pushing Organic produce and his equally bland partner. I guess everyone, even a prince, needs a cause. But then I found out the visit and speech wasn't until Monday. So my morning plans were thrown a bit. But I still managed to head down to the Mission district and sample the "best" Burrito in San Francisco and it was pretty memorable. Big I guess, and good as far as Mexican.

I had a great Halloween night out partying in the Castro. I went out with my Aussie workmate and I figured partying in the gay district of SF we got mistaken for a couple more than once. But it was a great party and the final count was over 300,000 by the time we left. We left early by about 11pm since we had to work the next day, but the party went on all night. I got a few good pictures, but was told the crazy stuff went off after we left. There were a few weird scenes in the windows of the local apartments, but I couldn't get a clear pic in the dark from my new camera. Still trying to figure the new camera settings out.

So tomorrow I'm booked on a bus tour of Sonoma and Napa Valley for wine tasting at 5 different wineries. I'm in with three friends from work and we get to check out the top wineries in California. Should be a lot of fun, and we'll get buzzed in the afternoon, wich is always a good thing.

Tomorrow and next week is gonna be a busy one, so early to bed tonight (on a Saturday night, how sad is that).

Bodhi

Another quick update here to pass on some pics of my latest travels. I think last time I put up an entry I was in the UK, but since then I've upped roots again and crossed another ocean to take up residence on the West Coast of the US, San Francisco, California to be specific. I jumped employers and am now consulting on a banking client until Christmas. Not a bad place to spend the autumn. They got me set up in a beautiful serviced apartment up on the 23rd floor with a wall to wall living room window overlooking the whole San Fran Bay, with the Bay Bridge to my right, Golden Gate Bridge to the left, and Alcatraz dead center in the middle. It's a view to die for, and a nice place to live for the next seven weeks. I'll include a shot I took just now, but it's night now after work here on a Monday, so you get the night view of the bay.

I took a trip out to Yosemite National Park on Saturday with my Aussie buddy from work. It was a long 4 hour ride there and back, but the place was absolutely incredible and well worth the ride. The pictures speak for themselves.

Well, tonight is Halloween night and we're off to the Castro district (the gay district) of San Francisco cause that's where the big party and parade is in the city. I've been promised that there will be numerous people running around minus costume (and clothes), so it should be an interesting night. I'll take my camera and maybe get some unique shots.

Hey all. Just a quick one to put of the pics from last week's Notting Hill Festival. It was a three day party over the bank holiday weekend here. The Carnival started on Sunday, but the big day was on holiday Monday. And when I say big, I mean BIG. Of course they say there wasn't as many people as last year due to the London bombings, but to be honest I can't really picture from being there how they possible could have crammed any more people in those streets.

It's traditionally been a street party, and is the largest street party in Europe. But there were so many people (over 1 million they said afterwards in the papers) that in order to fit everyone in the party was squeezed into the size of a small city. And there were still places in the parade route where I seriously looked around at the sea of wall to wall people (drunk and stoned people I might add as everyone had a Pint in one hand and a joint in the other) and realized that if 1 person started pushing, there would have been one of the stampedes that happened in Baghdad today where six hundred people were killed. This being primarily a Carribean party with the majority of the partyers being big black dudes, my skinny little white ass would have been the first one down and out.

But the party was a blast. The music was mostly Jamican dancehall and Caribbean mixes, but there was also different streets like the Spanish samba street, and the Electronica street with DJs. Now that's a funny site, for ninety percent of the time I'm bumping up and down to the Reggae and Dancehall, then I turn a corner and the sea of black turns to a sea of white. It was amazing the juxtaposition between the Carribean streets, and the one Electronica street with DJs. You even lose the sketchy guys trying to sell you ganga, replaced by the tripped out hippies offering you laughing gas balloons. I just stuck to my pints of 1664 to be safe. There were enough police there to arrest half of London.

But it turned out peaceful (only saw one fight between two drunk Jamaicans), and no one got blown up. So I'd say it was a success.

At the moment I'm currently still in London and living the student life at Queen Mary University in the East End. The residence runs as a hotel in the summer when the students are gone home, and since I'm paying my own way on this contract and don't get to live in a free, fancy hotel, and I'm going cheap. Most hotels in London run upwards of 60 pounds a night minimum, which can get costly where you're living there for two months. So this place is 19 pound, 50 pence a night, which is still costly for most places, but for this city it's dirt cheap. And I've got broadband in my room to boot, which you usually don't get in a hotel, and if you do you have to pay a fortune for it. Here for 10 quid I get a month of internet.

So as I'm working from home for two months, my life has been pretty boring so there ain't much new to report. My day consists of waking up, walking two feet to my desk and working all day. Or at least until I get bored and decide to play online games. Then off to the pub for a pint and some dinner, and early to bed. Not much fun, but it's a nice break from the travelling. And since the boss is a continent away over on the West Coast of the States, I can get the work done on my own time. Which usually means working over the weekend, so I can goof off a little during the week.

Anyways, I did get adventorous last weekend and decided that I should get off my ass and go see Stonehenge. Since it's only a 90 minute train ride from London, it was an easy trip. I got up early and headed down to Victoria station and caught the train to Salisbury. I even passed through my old town of Basingstoke on the way, where I worked for a month back in February. Then from Salisbury, I caught the tour bus about 20 minutes away to Stonehenge. Now Stonehenge is world famous, and when you hear the history of it going back 4,500 years it is pretty amazing. But to look at, well, it could hardly be called awe inspiring. It's a couple of big rocks kinda jumbled up, with half of them missing (I guess they said people used to take them for building and stuff over the last few thousand years). So now they're only half of them left. But just being there and saying that I've been to Stonehenge now is worth the price of the train ticket. I could have taken a tour from London which would have cost about 60 quid. But I did it on my own and it only cost me about 16 quid for the whole thing. Mind you I didn't buy a ticket for the train on the way there, and no one asked me so I got the ride for free. On the way back I got nailed though, and I guess with my accent he figured I was clueless tourist. Although I claimed I was only going from Basingstoke to London, so the ticket was half what it should have been. I know, sneaky, but getting free train rides through Europe is almost like a sport for the locals here, so I just joined in.

After Stonehenge, I stopped in Salisbury and went looking for Salisbury steak. But the restaurant I had lunch in didn't have it on the menu, and the lady just laughed at me and walked away when I asked. Now Salisbury Cathedral was an impressive site. The tallest church spire in England, and a huge church. But we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I got none to show. The coolest thing there which I didn't know was there, is that Salisbury Church is the home of the "Magna Carta". That's the early consitution written up god knows how long ago which was the precursor to the US Constitution, and pretty much every democratic constitution. I really wanted to get a picture of that, but the place was packed.

Well, it's Saturday and I'm here for another three weeks (or at least till the students come back mid September and I get kicked out of here). Then off to who knows where. Wherever the next job happens to be.

It’s a grey, chilly summer day here in Jolly old England, and I’m sitting here in Hyde Park parked out on the grass by the Serpentine river watching the good people of London slowly filtering into the park for their Sunday morning stroll. Just another normal, lazy Sunday in London as the city seems to be getting back to normal. You’d never think there was any anything out of the ordinary, save for the occasional police car doing their rounds through the park. Now the Tube stations, that’s another story. I woke up early this morning and went to Paddington station just up the street from my hotel for my usual morning tea on the upper balcony. And there you find groups of police armed with machine guns doing the rounds. I took a stop by Edgeware Road tube station, which is just around the corner from my movie rental shop, and you would never know that seven people got blown to bits there not three weeks before. The station is open and busy as ever.

So I’m now back in London after completing my short little three week contract in Germany and the UK. Last I wrote, I was resident in Heilbronn, Germany, a cute little Bavarian town with some beautiful architecture and even better Beer Gardens. On the 20th I caught the plane from Stuttgart back to Heathrow, and then onwards to Newcastle. Now Newcastle is on the North East coast of England, just below the Scottish border and about an hour south of Edinborough. It’s a big city with the reputation for being a crazy party city. It was ranked in the top 10 party cities in the world. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons I didn’t get to check out the nightlife so I guess I missed out. We were actually based in North Tyneside, which is about a half hour north of Newcastle. The hotel they put us in was a new hotel called the Village Hotel, which was pretty crap all around. I got stuck in a tiny closet of a room while the other guys got the suites (no idea why). But the fact that it was a business hotel serving the local industrial estate, miles from civilization, meant we were stuck there eating at their restaurant and drinking in their pub the whole 10 days.

Last week in Newcastle was “Tall Ships Week”, which was essentially a race of most of the world’s largest sailing ships. Newcastle was one of the stops on the race, which started in Ireland, went to France, on to Newcastle, then ended in Norway. Saturday I headed down to Newcastle to the river to see the tall ships, but it was too early and only two had arrived. One was a Russian ship, which turned out to be the tallest Tall ship in the world. And the other was a Thai ship. The rest of the day was spent exploring their Art Museum, converted from an old riverside flour mill, and exploring the inside of a few of the local historic pubs (and the local famous Newcastle Brown ale).

Tuesday night the client took us down to the river to see the Tall Ships parade, but as usual in the UK we saw more of the pub than of the ships. I brought my camera, but the only time I saw the ships was when they passed by the window of the pub. We finished the night with a nice dinner at an Italian place by the river.

So the week came and went and we finally wrapped up the work Friday, gave the client closing meeting and headed for the airport. Everyone went their separate ways back home, and me, for lack of anywhere better to go, flew to London. I’ve got another four week contract which is not specific to any site, so I can do the work from my hotel room, wherever in the world I choose to be. I was considering heading back to Thailand to spend the month working from there, but as my condo still isn’t complete there isn’t much point. Despite people blowing themselves up on public transport, I’ve gotta stick around London and scope out my next project. And try to not get blown up myself in the meantime.

So where am I now? Last update was somewhere in Asia on the tail end of a contract and the far end of a holiday. Then came a well deserved break back home to collect my thoughts. Dinners with the family, days on the beach, parties back home with old highschool friends, moments on the rock, a little grounding per say. Then over far too soon, and then back on the plane. I'd report more, but this is my "travel blog" and moments at home are private and off the record.

So this week I'm resident in a little town on the edge of Bavaria called Heilbronn. A small, out of the way place that didn't even register on Google as being worth noting. A search on this place reveals a few wine sites and not a lot else.

Not a whole lot to report this update as I've only been here for about ten days now and that time has consisted pretty much of going to work going to dinner, going to bed. I had a free weekend off in that time, but that was pretty much taken up by work, dinner and bed. Not to say that my life is that boring, or predictable.
But right now I figure I spent the last four months working about quarter time and justifying the rest in vacation, so now is the time for banking the hours and making some cash. Justifying time on the beach is easy when the sun is shining and you can always charge a few hours a day sitting on the beach, but that doesn't make for a big invoice at the end of the month.

So despite how beautiful Heilbronn is (despite the fact that it got bombed to the ground in WW2 according to the client who took us to dinner last night), I didn't get a whole lot of touristing in this week. Tomorrow I have to finish up and do the client closing meeting, then I'm catching a ride with the other consultant to Stuttgart airport to catch our 6:20 flight to Heathrow, then on to Newcastle.

The two English guys I've been working with have been doing the Jordie accent, or whatever they call the Newcastle people. It's right below the Scottish border and they say they are really tough people. Or at least I've heard the girls on Friday brave the cold winds that blow down from Scotland in little tiny skirts. The UK guys on the team seem to be excited to go, so I guess we'll see.

Just a quick entry here to post up some pics from the weekend spent day-tripping around Singapore. It was the usual weekend spent working for a few hours each day, so I took off Saturday and Sunday afternoon to see how the Singaporeans spend their weekends off. Saturday I spent the afternoon rambling around Orchard Road and experiencing the capitalist hysteria which is Singapore. My god these people know how to shop. Orchard Road consists of one street about 8 blocks long with about three shopping malls per block. It's like every country in the world wanted to build a shopping mall here, so they just all went ahead and did it. There's Japanese shopping malls, Chinese ones, a few French ones, the standard low budget Indonesian ones, American malls, and everything else. Plus with so much competition they have to get people inside using not so subtle tactics, like placing stages with massive sound systems and really, really hyper sales people screaming in loudspeakers everyone who walks by. Great place.

Sunday I caught the cable car out to Sentosa Island and spent the day hiking around the island. It's incredibly overpriced as there is about thirty different attractions like Underwater World, Dolphin Lagoon, Buttefly World, Sentosa Tower, the old Fort, etc, etc, which cost an arm and a leg. Me, I paid for the 10 Sing ride out there and spent the day for free hiking around the hiking trails looking at bugs and stuff. Check out the pics of this really cool giant spider I found in the jungle. I wanted to take it home, but thought the custom officials on the flight back to London wouldn't approve. I wasted about an hour feeding the thing until I remembered that Singapore was in the middle of a Duenge Fever problem and I was standing in the jungle without fly dope and getting eaten alive by misquitoes. Good thing it wasn't morning when the deadly mozzies are usually out.

Bodhi

Wednesday evening, work is done for the day, the beer is on the table, the appetizers are on the way, the entrée is being considered, the sea air is coming up off the Singapore river, the sun’s just going down around dusk, Boat Quay is just starting to bustle with the after-work happy hour crowd, food and drink are expensed, and life doesn’t get much better than this. I wish I had my camera to take a picture.


View Talay Building 1 & 2 - The first building completed and the second about 95% completed.

So it was a gruelling day at work trying to abide by the timetable set by the client, but it’s all worth it when you can hop in the cab after work and jet down to the river-side and let it all unwind on the company dollar. There’s nothing worse than spending your own money. I’ve gotten to the point where if I can’t get a receipt for it and include it in my daily expenses, I won’t buy it. Which makes it difficult when you’re between contracts and you start trying to figure out how you can expense that bottle of Whiskey and mixers for the night. Still haven't figured that one out.


Building 1 shot from the road directly in front. The front landscaping has been completed and is amazing. Palms trees and a landscaped U shaped drive around the front.

So I’m now back in Singapore after a whirlwind tour of Thailand. Ok, three weeks hardly constitutes a whirlwind tour, but it’s amazing how time flies in the Land of Smiles. I do a three week contract and I’m ready to resign and retire. I go to Thailand for three weeks and I’ve barely blinked and I’m back on the plane home. Or wherever home approximates for these days. In this case it’s Singapore and my trusty old hotel room which feels like home now. I spend more than a month in one place now it starts feeling like home. But three weeks in Thailand pretty much consisted of cruise around Bangkok seeing old friends, four days on the beach in Jomtien, back to Bangkok for two days to visit frieds, four days on the beach in Jomtien, back to back to Bangkok, etc, etc. Good thing I had a contract in Singapore to make it back for or I could have gone on like that forever.


A shot of Building 2 from Thappraya road in the front. This is the building I originally bought a unit in on the second floor. But I switched to Building 3 after seeing the layout and it being larger and much closer to the ocean.

So the purpose of the trip back to Thailand was officially to check on the progress of my condo and make sure that my money being sent off into cyberspace regularly each month was going to a good cause and not to some mythical construction project. But lo and behold the “View Talay Building 3” which will soon become home does actually exist and is actually about half completed at this point. Upon dropping into the sales office the jolly old Frenchman, Roland, informed me that I’ve made a fantastic investment and should promptly buy three more. In salesman speak it sounds much more convincing. It seems they’ve had such success that they’ve put another three developments on the books. But I can only live in one and one will suffice for now.
The construction crew hard at work on Building 2. If I lived there I could be almost home now. But Building 3 has a long way to go.

Next comes the news that the project is a little behind schedule (mostly due to the death of the extremely obese company director, Dr Kevorkian, or actually Geoff Kevorkian or something. It seems the good life in Thailand was a little too much for his poor old ticker) so my building will be completed a little behind schedule. It was due to be completed by Oct 31, 2005, but now they are saying it will more likely be late December 2005 or so. Now just need to figure out how to spend Christmas in Thailand and explain that one to mom and dad. Just kidding guys.


A shot of Building 2 from Thappraya road in the front. This is the building I originally bought a unit in on the second floor. But I switched to Building 3 after seeing the layout and it being larger and much closer to the ocean.

So now I'm back in the corporate world working frantically over such world changing questions as "who is the second managerial sign-off on the purchase of the copy machine?" and "when Jo-Blo quit the company did IT delete his user account?". From worrying about which book I should read today, to senseless crisis like these is quite the step down in life. But we all have to make money, and paradise just ain't no fun when you're broke. So I'm back on a renewed mission in life to pursue the capitalist dollar and swallow the inane corporate headaches all so I can one day soon lie on the beach and have utter disregard for irritating thoughts of money. If there's one thing this last trip has taught me, well two things, it's: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy peace of mind. And two: I'm really, really lazy.


Slowly but surely it's coming along.

I've included the pics of my condo, or what's currently there of it. You can see from the two completed buildings what the veneer should look like, but Building three and four are in an L shape and I think much better designed. And my building has it's own pool on the second floor directly below my balcony, and they are committing the first floor to a bank branch, restaurants and bars. Which means that although I'm on the seventh floor, in terms of height I'm really about 8 1/2 stories up which improves the view and still keeps the condo building a boutique building with limited number of owners.
With that Crown they put on top one could almost feel like Royalty.

Although the quality is amazing in them all. I took a walk through Building one which is the only fully completed one, and it was breathtaking. As most of the owners live back in their home countries, the place was completely silent with no one around except the staff who were scrubbing the place down to a sheen. The place was all marble inside and sparkling. So mine should be a keeper when it's done end of this year. I just can't wait to get down there and go on a shopping spree for a big plasma bigscreen, surround sound system, huge oak bed, black leather couches, the works.


Or what is built yet. But at least it's on it's way.

Well, got work tomorrow and gotta get back to the hotel and do my nightly sauna, laps around the pool and off to bed.


"Now Start Building 4" They've never been very good with their English over there in Thailand. But Roland, the salesman, showed me the sales chart for building 4 and he's bought a condo in the Building 4 directly across the street on the top floor.

Till next time and next place...

So I need to take off some time from travelling to do some travelling. Travel for work, travel for fun, at least I get to lie on the beach and keep my laptop packed up in my suitcase.


So I spent two days in Bintan essentially just lying on the beach and snorkelling. Not a bad way to work the smog out of the lungs after living the big city life for a week. Fresh air, blue sea, and nothing to do except check my email once a day for word on my next job. Not a bad life I must say.

But every good thing must come to an end. I had to submit my invoice and expenses for this month so I had to get back to Singapore to pick up all my receipts which were stored in my suitcase that I've been leaving at my hotel here in the city. So now today, which is Thursday I've sent them off via mail to London and my work is done for the moment. I've got to check out here since it's already 12:30 and I don't need to pay for another day in this expensive hotel.


Now the decision is where to go next. I could hang around here until they give me final word on a contract in Franfurt and one in Captown which are coming up. Or I could head back to Indonesia since it's only 45 minutes away by ferry, or I could check out flights to Thailand to go and check on my condo and how work is progressing. I think I'll go for the latter since I've head flights from Singapore to Bangkok are dirt cheap. That way I'll have the weekend in Thailand, and if things work out I'll be able to fly directly to my next job from Bangkok, then use my return flight back to Singapore for the scheduled job on the 23rd.