My Chinese New Year - Spearding the love in this festive season

Before the Chinese new year is over, let me wish my blog readers Happy Chinese New Year in the Year of rat before it's too late...I bet some of you might have traveled back to your hometown to celebrate this important Chinese festival with your family. Ya, I have traveled back to Singapore and my parents' hometown in LBJ( a village near Sepang) to celebrate this Chinese New Year. As usual, CNY is the most important festival to celebrate for the whole year compared to other festival, not only I can get a secretary's salary for that few days without working (Don't ask me how much I get for my AngPao, haha) and also meet my relatives that I have never met for a year.

But for this year, I decided to make a bit different. After watching the Petronas TV Ad during this CNY, I feel pity to those who are celebrating every CNY without their family. I don't know what will happen to me when I would celebrate CNY without my love one. Therefore, IEM YES and I decided to pay a visit to Orphanage home to bring the joy and family environment to them. Although this was not the first time I went orphanage home, but didn't know why I have not much to chat with them until some children came to me and became friendly to me. IEM also prepared AngPao for each and everyone in the home...that's so generous!!! Of course the visit will not end and complete without a group picture....Have fun!!!

Group picture with all the kids and IEM, Malaysia Pharmacy Society friends....cheeers!!!

Tiring but fruitful day

Today woke up 6 o'clock in the morning, just because of joining this Asia Pacific Wireless Broadband Forum (APWBF) in Nikko Hotel near KLCC. Overall it was quite useful for me as the communication engineering major, although I didn't grab all the content being presented there due to the language barrier (most of the presenters are Japanese) and technicality, but I appreciate what I have gotten there and people flew all the way from Japan to share something with you.

What I must highlight here is that the speech given by Dato' Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, the Minister of Water, Communications and Energy. I was really impressed by his humorous but straight to the point speech that has outlined the problems faced in telecommunications industry in Malaysia. He even joked about the 3G is girl, game and gambling in Japan...haha..I really admired his bravery of speaking of the true situation and well analysis of telecom industry in Malaysia...

Dr. Lim giving his inspirational speech

The forum ended in 5pm then took the peak hour LRT from KL area back to home....then I thought of some questions when next time I start working whether I should travel by car or LRT...I always think of travel by LRT can save a lot of times and money, but after squeezing like sardin fish today in LRT then I have to think twice before making any wise decision in future.....

OK.Back to home around 7pm not more than half an hour after taking bath, I straight went to Cineleisure for Young Engineers Nite organized by YES. As usual, meeting new friends and socializing with the people, chit-chating and talking crab even you don't even know the person very well. I admit that last time I was very bad in socializing, but after so many this kind of sessions in IEM activities, I think I am automatically got used to this kind of situation or shall I call environment has trained me to bull-shit socialize a lot....

We had a game session at the end, unfortunately our team lost it....so as a punishment we got to wear a movie costume prepared by the restaurant...wow, I thought those who won should get the chance to wear....haha

So I changed myself into....

Philippines Trip - Day 8 (Last Day)

1^st December 2007 (Saturday)

Today was our last day in Philippines, but we really didn’t have much opportunity to travel around Manila indeed. So today we tried to ride on the modern MRT system of Manila, experience the special jeepney in Manila and visit to Fort Santiago and Jose Rizal Park, a national hero of Philippines.

Jeepney in ManilaFord SantiagoInside a churchNot forgetting the best doughnut in the world can be found in Philippines, that's why sure couldn't miss it

In the evening, it’s time for us to leave this bustling city. Even right before we went in the immigration checkpoint, we had our last dinner with our Filipino friends in the airport to say good bye to them. Although hospitality and friendliness of them made us really reluctant to leave, but looking at our watch it was already half an hour before the boarding time, at last a hug and a kiss said it all.

In conclusion, the trip broadened my perception of engineering education and the role of engineers can play in this globalized world. The trip exposes me to experiences beyond the confines of the classroom and makes me more understand the phenomenon of ASEAN engineering and challenges that ASEAN would face tomorrow in the pursuit of excellence in this engineering world.

Philippines Trip - Day 7

30^th November 2007 (Friday)

Besides the conference, we didn't forget to do some sightseeing either. However, we only had half day to tour around Cebu since our flight to Manila was in the afternoon. So early in the morning we had a chance to tour around Cebu city to see the prominence history site of Cebu. Besides, we also grabbed the last chance to buy some souvenirs from Cebu before going back to Manila. We even encountered a group of people demonstrated on the street, but I think this is quite common in Philippines already where they even could use their “People Power” to collapse a President’s power back in 1986.

I'm not Christian, just posing in front of a famous crossing in CebuDemonstration in Cebu's street

Last meal in Cebu
Farewell with our Filipino friends in Cebu Airport

After all the rushing for souvenirs and we finally able to catch our flight back to Manila for one day stopover. The sky was already dark when we arrived in Manila, so we just stroll around Pasey city which was in walking distance from our hotel.

Philippines Trip - Day 6

29^th November 2007 (Thursday)

Today’s program was not that formal which we were brought to a technical tour at our own choice ranging from visit to shipbuilding facility, San Miguel Brewery tour or South Countryside discovery. All the young delegates joined the same program, which was visit to shipbuilding facility. To my surprise, I met my MMU President there, Prof. Ghauth. Then I remember MMU got an award in closing dinner tonight, Prof Ghauth came all the way from Malaysia to receive this award.

The journey to the shipbuilding facility took about 2 hours. Most of the distance was up and down on a mountain, that’s where we could see the pretty scenic view of countryside. Seen from a distance, the Tsuneishi shipyard is an impressive sight. Even more impressive is that the shipyard – a joint venture between Tsuneishi of Japan and Aboitiz of Cebu — is located in Balamban, Cebu, a tiny coastal agricultural town on the western undeveloped side of the island. The yard is actually an assembly line of ships, capable of building 14 Handymax vessels a year. Each vessel is almost 200 meters long and 32 meters wide and weighs 56,000 tons without its cargo – larger than a modern aircraft carrier. We were brought to every stage of the shipbuilding process and there was one engineer explained to us in details what was going on there.

Group Photo in the Shipyard

Posing in front of big ship

Time really flew. After the closing dinner tonight, that was the officially end for this conference. Most of the young delegates dressed their national costume to this culture dinner, it reflected the diverse culture we had in ASEAN region. Most importantly was that MMU received the ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement award at this dinner, when the moment Prof Ghauth received the award on the stage and the achievement of MMU was announced to all the delegates, I was so proud being a MMU student. The final agenda of the dinner was every country needed to do a country performance. It was great to watch all the ten countries cultural performance in one avenue and Malaysia delegation sang “Malaysia Truly Asia” song to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of independence. After all, some of the delegates were bidding farewell to us they might not be with us from tomorrow onwards.

Fashion Show featuring different cultural attire

very precious photo with Prof. Ghauth and Prof. Chuah, where two of them have retired from MMU...miss them much....

Could you see who is singing on the stage? haha...it's meIt's the end...hope our friendship will last forever

Philippines Trip - Day 5

28^th November 2007 (Wednesday)

Although the activities started yesterday, but the opening ceremony was held today. At first it was expected that the president of Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would attend this opening ceremony, but at the end she sent her representative to represent her. The opening ceremony was filled of country report by each ASEAN country and a conference with a theme of “Engineering, Energy and the Environment: Ensuring Survival For Future Generations.” The objective of the theme is to urge all engineers to use its engineering skills to tackle the burgeoning issues of the environment in ASEAN region or even in the world. From the conference, I learnt different perspective from different country to address this arising issue in their country.

At night Philippines Young Engineers (YEP) organized a fellowship for all the young delegates at a restaurant. All the young delegates attended this event until we needed to combine all the tables together to form one long table. Frankly, that was the longest ever table I had ever seen in my life. It looked like a global village there where everybody shared their views from different point of view from their country. I even knew two engineering students, one from Philippines and one from Cambodia. The fun part of it was every country needed to sing a song after our dinner. What was truly unforgettable was the song we sang together during the dinner. I think that was the most memorable moment of my trip in Cebu. This was how our friendship was fostered through these activities and relationship between us was getting better and better.

A Malaysian-turn-Singapore MP, Er. Lee Bee Wah

Prof. Chuah was there...

Head of delegation from each country

The result after the shopping time

Fellowship at Night

Clubbing Session at Night

Philippines Trip - Day 4

27^th November 2007 (Tuesday)

Today marked the beginning of the conference which all kind of serious engineering issues would be discussed deeply in our meeting later. That would be the main purpose why I came all the way from Malaysia – to lead the formation of Engineering Students of ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organizations (ESAFEO). When Malaysia first proposed it to the ASEAN countries, it had mixed reactions from the ASEAN countries; some back it up and some disagrees. At first to vote whether to form the ESAFEO, it was a tie. After a series of argument and discussion, we got supports from Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Brunei and Thailand. Therefore, from next year onwards, all countries will bring their student leader to attend YEAFEO in respective countries.

In the afternoon session, all countries including non-ASEAN countries were giving a country presentation. From these presentations, we learnt from each country and knew what are the activities or program running in their countries like courses, technical visit to other countries, specific program for student members and etc. I could feel the great vision of each country to bring their engineering institution to higher level. After the presentations, it was the time for souvenirs exchange. Every country brought their country unique souvenirs to exchange with all other countries. Friendship was building up gradually since we first arrived here.

At night, I felt the privilege being invited by the Cebu governor to dinner at the governor’s office. It was a very grand dinner where everyone was treated like a special guest. We even had police to escort to the dinner venue! What was even more interesting was the present of former president of Philippines, Fidel V. Ramos at the dinner. The speech given by him was full of laughter and insightful, of which he analyzed the engineering problems and solution during his day as the president.

YEAFEO Family

Dancers for the dinner

Nice dining hall

fantastic performance

Philippines Trip - Day 3

26^th November 2007 (Monday)

Morning was busy packing up our things and checked out as the flight to Cebu is at 1pm. We couldn’t visit anywhere with this little of time. So right after our breakfast we already headed to domestic airport to wait our flight and settled our lunch at the airport itself. As usual for a budget airline, the flight was delayed one hour. The flight time from Manila to Cebu is only one hour. At around 3pm in the afternoon, we finally arrived our desired destination – Mactan-Cebu International Airport. As soon as we stepped out from the immigration checkpoint, we were surprised by warmth and hospitality shown by a team a people who welcomed us even we yet stepped out of the airport. Then they guided us our hotel in Cebu by taxi.

In the heart of the Philippine archipelago lies Cebu, a prosperous island endowed with natural beauty and rich heritage. Known as the “Queen City of the South”, although it has no bustling city like it is in Manila, its tranquil and peaceful atmosphere makes it a great holiday destination. While on the way to our hotel, we saw a village style living standard of people here, very slow pace and laid back. In addition to its historical prominence where it was the first arrival point of Ferdinand Magellan in Philippines, Cebu also offers stretches of white sand beaches and pristine waters, but too bad we didn’t have a chance to visit any beaches in Cebu due to the heavy conference schedule.

At night, we had our dinner at a local Filipino restaurant to taste their local food. Young engineers from Japan, Indonesia and Myanmar were invited to join us as well. Through a series of conversations, we got the delegates from different country better and built and strong sense of friendship.

with Thailand Delegates

Eva, my Philippines buddy

Masato-san and Ken-san