This time round, I am so glad I made the effort to meet up with some old friends.
I met up with one of my closest friends in secondary school, Little Miss Kampung. She spent a few years of her life growing up in America and (I think) she completed Form 3,4 and 5 in Malaysia. She is such a funny character. She never wore a headscarf in school, but it was a decision she made in the recent years. Despite that, she is still the same person to me, and we spent hours talking about all those years we spent chatting our secondary school life away and getting caught by our teachers. We had dinner at Alamanda shopping centre. We ate at this steamboat restaurant, and I never thought I would say this, but it was quite good! Malay steamboat!
I also met up with some other friends from secondary school for dinner. We talked a lot about love, life and family. With one of the girls... when we were 14 years old, she lived in a small house in Subang, with her mum, dad, grandmother, aunt and three younger sisters. 14 years later, she still lives in the same house, with her mum, dad, grandmother, aunt and three younger sisters! OMG That is amazing!
Here is the new team which I had the pleasure to train in the KL office. Before I left from Melbourne, I looked at the name list and yeah.. whatever. It was only when they were all seated before me, I realised that we hired 9 girls and only 1 guy. In this picture, there are two BE's from the Melbourne office, both staying in KL until January 2011.
It was an interesting mix of people. Two were existing employees from other departments, two were fresh grads (one from Monash uni, another one studied in Canada for 5 years), the others were experienced, majority from our main Cyberjaya competitor, HSBC. One girl worked in Dublin for about 6 years, another one studied in Dublin Business School for a few years as well.
The girl hidden at the back, I have been telling my mum and friends that I have a real princess working in my team! Haha, okay she is not really a princess, but she is from the Kelantan (one of the Malaysian states) royal family, who was forced to marry a guy 11 years her senior, at the tender age of 19. Her husband was also from the royal family too. She gave birth to a son a year later, and then shortly after that, her husband passed away (due to cancer). OMG. My face changed and I said "Sorry to hear about that". She told me she is fine, because she did not really love him and that her little boy is now 5 years of age.
Along with the two BE's from Melbourne, we took the free shuttle from Shangri-la Putrajaya to Shangri-la KL one night. From Shangri-la KL on Jalan Sultan Ismail, we walked all the way to Jalan Alor. I was the self-appointed tour guide, and I have never been to Jalan Alor before in my life. LOL we got lost, of course... walking... but we finally made it there, after stopping random strangers numerous times, asking for directions.
We tried lok lok.
Of course I let my Aussie colleagues taste a durian! I paid Rm20 for this baby durian, which came with 4 little pieces. My parents never fail to remind me that I got cheated. Robbed blind by this durian man! FAIL!
Regardless of the expensive durian, I enjoyed my Jalan Alor experience very much! It was great!
One my last day in KL office, I was planning on taking the team out to lunch, and treat them to a nice meal. Instead, they tricked me and brought me downstairs to the cafeteria, where they were waiting for me with heaps of yummy food such as satay, noodles, cookies, fruits and even a delicious cake!
Such a lovely gesture from them. I felt bad because they paid for everything with their own money... oh dear. However, it made my entire KL trip feel like such a positive experience.
I thought that the lunch was more than enough, and then later, they presented me with a basket of fresh flowers and a framed picture to bring back to the Melbourne office. Speechless!
Finally, before checking out from the hotel, I was able to snap a photo of our 'Bas Pekerja'. It really did feel like one! Each morning, all of us staying at the hotel, would hop on the van. The driver would then drop us off, one by one, at the different offices in Cyberjaya. IBM, DHL, HP, Shell, BMW, HSBC, etc. At the end of the day, the van will pick us up again and take us back to the hotel. So much better than taking a crappy disgusting taxi.
Okay, bedtime. Good night!
