drive around in motorhome still can go shopping! though it can sleep 6 inside, it also parks like a normal car in the public carpaks.. you dun need a bus bay.

last weekend i drove to a little town called cowra. its west ward from sydney towards the interior past the popular blue mts. i read about this town, significant for having a japanese war cemetry as it had aPOW camp there in second world war . historical. it now also has a beautiful jap garden there as a symbol of post war reconcialiation. while we were there they were screening old movies under the stars
in the jap garden. i drank a beer while sitting on the grass watching an old cult movie, rocky horror show. fun.

Ok, gathering dust again. Been busy with holidays! spent 11 nights in a motor home in NZ's south island. Went to most of the popular tourist spots but some how travelling in the motor home is an entirely new experience and made the trip memorable. The routine of setting up the vehicle for sleeping, for dvd sessions at night, packing up to drive off, finding holiday parks for overnight stay, plugging in the power for the microwave and tv to work, cleaning out the toilet , filling water , cooking in the communal kitchens, running from toilets to motor home in the cold etc. You all should try this. And NZ is as beautiful as I ever imagined it to be. its got everything from tropical rainforests, snow capped mountains, stunning coast lines and beautiful fiords.

on the work front, things are good, enjoying my time here in sydney and we were just visited by our regional citiphone head.. good old lawrence.

hello, just received some comments that my blog is gathering dust and cobweb. this is a good time to update. Sep 1 was my anniversary on leaving citi S'pore. In the last one year I had stood under a puffing volcano, went laos with wife on my 50th birthday, backpacked with my daughter, swam with a whale shark, trekked in a tiger reserve protected by a rifle armed ranger, attended an indian wedding in india(real stuff), sat first class train for 13 hrs, and of course lived and worked in a foreign city. Not bad.long san , my good fren commented that how much things can happen in one year,but in one year some things also never change.. he is still typing on the same key board, drinking from the same unwashed coffee mug in his office and still doing rainbow. ha.. he quite chim.

so june and andrew has moved on as well. good for them, good for renewal process in citiphone and ops!

I just went for a week's holiday in Australia's red center.. right in the middle of the continent where ayers rock (uluru)is. Beautiful and magnificant. Dont ask for photo, go goggle it.. there are some real good pictures. you have to see the real thing to believe that the striking colour of the rock at sun rise and sun set is real.The thing about ayers rock is that its more expensive to fly there from sydney than it is to fly to NZ from sydney! that shows how big australia is.how do i know? cos i already bought tickets to NZ.. cost only 300 return. hired a motor home and will drive around south island for 12 days.

And yup, looks like i will be staying in sydney till christmas.

hi, I'm now in manila, helping the australian business to front the audit. they outsource to manila their citiphone but there is a compliance day 2 review and call monitoring group there that reports to sydney. The manager fell sick the weekend before audit and i had to cancel my ayers rocks trip to fly here. arrived last sunday and was in office 6am moday morning !! lots of things to do to prepare for audit. everyday work 14 hrs. this part i never bargained for, certainly, i thought i never had to go through another audit, now i have to!!

by the way, met up with josie and her husband and kid in sydney recently. we had greek food, mexican , chocolate mud cakes in my neighbourhood cafe. and did some weekend markets together. its nice to catch up .

hi hi. sorry for the inactivity and getting no-life people like jensen totally bored.
I 'm staying on for another 3 months, meaning a 6 mth contract. Cannot really see through all my work in 3 months.working on the AVR and ECCMs equivalent now plus some audit things.

I'm also moving to a smaller but much newer apt next week. This one is in CDB, 4 min walk to office, 10 min walk to china town. never lived in CBD before, so thought it might be good experience.

Called toll free phone home the other day and spoke with jo seah . plus passing messages to all the 7am aunties who were on duty!

Manila was good. But I took the week end off and flew off to swim with whale sharks in donsol, an hour flight from mnl. manged one encounter.. with a 13 footer. swam with it for almost 5 full minutes. it was a great experience. in the info center, there was a poster asking us to petition against sentosa resort world for wanting to get a whale shark in the marine world. of course i did not tell any one i was s'porean that day.. i petition too. after that encounter, i know no glass tank, no matter how big, can contain a fish that can grow to the size of 2 buses and migrates thousand of miles every year.

after i move apartment next week, i willprobably take a few days off, may go to ayers rocks in central australia, where they call the red center. think it will be very cold then! now already in sydney its very cold.out in the desert will be unbearable. but its one of those gotta do stuff!

time flies too. june soo just reminded me the other day that i handed in my resignation letter last june.. june 6. almost a year now.

I'm into my 7th week in sydney. work is fine. trying to work on some initiatives that can help improve CSLM and productivity. Been talking to lawrence low on the phone quite a bit. And Ranga was here last week doing a biz visit. The guy is still so sharp and can remember so many CitiPhone stuff. Lucky I prepared for the meeting, if not get sent home on next plane.

My daughters have gone home last thurs. they were here with me for 6 weeks. It was good and now apartment is really quiet w/o them. Both me and wife going thru next phase of parenthood.. the one where the kids leave home. Except that in my case its the parents that left home, kids still at home in SG.

Have not been to hunter valley yet as rec by florence. I will some time in near future. But have been to blue mts and up north to Forster - great lakes area. One nice thing is close encounter with wild dolphins.. they were swiming less than 20 m from us.. but we could not go out further cos current too strong and water too cold!

next week I'm going manila to work with the australian ops there. will probably transit at changi .. got time for a bowl of laksa and bak chor mee.

Hi all, I have been in Sydney almost 2 weeks now. Arrived on Mar 8, moved straight into my apt and started work on the following day. Wearing tie and leather shoes take some getting used to, and the other day, my fingers got sore from too much email typing. Things here are good. The Ctibankers here are nice and like Citibankers all over the world, work rate is high. We push hard during the office hours and try to get out without too much OT.

Running culture here is much stronger than in Sg, so I'm happy. We even have a nice gym and shower/locker facilities. I took a run through the CBD and inti their botanics garden and opera house. Then got back to shower and put in some more work.
On days I leave office early, i even take the scenic route home.. take train, ferry and bus to get home.I stay in the north of Sydney, a place that is very much like our Katong area, residential, low rise and lots of makan place. Even got a S'pore restaurant that is featured in their makansutra equivalent.

on weekends , I play tourist.

am still trying to understand the CitiPhone set up and processes here. They are structured differently and some of the processes are just so different. I wont replicate our CitiPhone here, it wont work. Just need to see what fits here.
My citi email is back on, you can look for me there!