Oktoberfest 2007 - in Singapur, wo denn bitte sonst?

Da soll mal einer anzweifeln das nicht alle schlechten Dinge auch ihre guten Seiten haben.


Ich jedenfalls hatte das Glück so noch zum Oktoberfest zu kommen. Zwar net auf der Münchner Wiesn, dafür aber am Gelände des Swiss Club Singapur. Gemeinsam mit ca. 2000 anderen Begeisterten/-trunkenen feierten wir also diesen germanischen Brauch des Festzeltsaufens, und trotz allem bemühens Seitens meines Arbeitskollegen Markus und mir den größten Deppen am fest owazurreißen, hatten wir übermächtige Konkurrenz nicht nur aus deutschsprachigen Nachbarländern :]
Nachdem schon fast alle Bürokollegen zum "ein Prosit.." zumindest mitlallten, und wir Deng unseren "junior engineer" nur mehr mühsam auf den Beinen halten konnten, war nicht nur meine interne Numerik zu Ende, zumindest was das Biermitzählen belangte. Aber es galt ja schließlich einen guten Ruf zu verteidigen - also ab in die Schnapsbar. Spätestens jetzt war es Zeit die Kamera auszupacken und einige denkwürdige Fotos zu schießen.


Nachdem der mit jedem Bier Vorsprung gewachsene Respekt unserer asiatischen Fachkollegen, sich in einer schier unermesslichen Zahl an Visitenkarten in der Tasche faktisch zählen ließ, war es auch gleich an der Zeit zu zeigen wo der Bartl den Most Kräfte mäßig holt. Und so verkündetet das dreimalige Klingeln des "Hau-den-Lukas" eine weitere Fuhr Bier, die uns wahrlich Kopf zerbrechen bereitete, nicht nur weil man ohnehin von jedem eingeladen wurde, und zu Beginn des Fests alle in der Nähe stehenden Bierkrüge ausleerte, sondern auch weil wir als die allerletzten der Truppe noch alle übrigen Biermarkerln (ein im Gegensatz zu LE besonders hoch im Kurs stehendes Zahlungsmittel) vor der drohend nahen Inflation bewahren mussten.
In diesem Sinne, vorwärts mit Gebrüll: "...viva Colonia, wir lieben das Leben..."

Ha, what a bluff

you guys really thought I´d be coming home, ha?
hahaha "niceley pealed..hehe"

But why should I leave a place thats so rich in colours as Tioman for example is?

Last weekend me and markus, a colleague from work skipped our plans to visit KL and decided to do something more relaxing, joyful and stressless. Well Tioman, sad to be under the 10 most beautifull islands on this world seemed to be just the right alternative. And it turned out to be just that. Togehter with a bunch of other trainees from Germany and Apple, my most favourite Phillipina, we left Singapur at 4am, for a "refreshing" 3hours morning drive to the malay Ferry terminal Mersing, where the speedboat to Tioman left. Not the worst ride I´ve ever had, and the right thing to create some stress to get rid of then on the island. The latter goes out for our friends @ BASF, and Daimler who rarely ever met stress, or workload in their life yet, and maybe never will.

However, although having not the best weather, it was a great place and time to slow down your heartbeat for a while. So calm, so nice, so friendly. Who ever gets close to this spot, should take the time to visit this marvellous place.

It's almost too bad the I have to leave in only one, short week. *schnüff*
Any ideas how to enlengthen my stay - hm? - I guess i could just miss my plane, that would be a bammer, wouldn´t it?

Wait, isn't that what I did last time? - Still, things could be worse

surfin, surfin...

Since a lot things happend lately, I´m behind schedule, regarding this blog.

Nevertheless I´d like to let you know I have been to Bali, the romantic Indonesian island everybody is talking about, and more and more people are discovering, and over all surfers paradise - shortly: "Endstation Sehnsucht"

Well after working 2 month really hard, I decided to take a four days break in a surf camp, and do - what else - surfing! My boss agreed and gave me 2 days of, and so I flew there Friday at 7pm, right in time to arrive at the weekly cocktail party at the camp. That camp, was a neatly kept, artifical inuit village, consisting only of Bamboo huts, still with state of the art luxuries like light and electric power, to feed the Laptops and Digicams everybody brought - except me (guess what, thats the reason there are no fotos :()

However, I didn't go there to relax, i went there to surf! And, men, I did! I took me just one day in surfschool to ride the first white water waves safely, and the second day I did some green waves to, starting on the Malibu, a fairly longer and for beginners board, changing to the 6.5 inch one allready the other days, and started making turns - WHAT A FEELING.

I had no idea that surfing would catch me like it did. I must have been a talent too, :) , and Ryan our surfcoach was visibly sorry to see me leave after only 4 days. You have to see, people mostly go there for at least 3 weeks, and most stay for 3 month or longer - spending all there money, and go back as soon as they can afford it again ...

After promising Ryan to continue with surfing, and after saying goodbye to almost everyone of the 40 people in the camp - it´s unbelievable how many people you get to know and like after such a short time, if only theres this attitude you have in common - I went to the airport to my short trip back. I had a sad feeling deep inside me, I haven't felt for ages, and by silently repeating the same formula again and again : "you´re coming back, you´re coming back, you´re..." I kept the straight walk to the check in.

Still, I´ll be back!

Bintan "Hütteldorf" or the thinking man

Hi there,

its monday, I´m at work, I´m tired - so everything as usual
Everything? Actually the outfading headache - I just took my 2nd aspirin this morning - reminds me of a slightly different weekend I just passed.

Well, for starters.
Philipp, or Viellieb, or Philippo, an IAESTE-Leoben comrade does his internship "nearby" in Hongkong, and so decided to just fly shortly "round the corner" to say hi. Nice, isn´t he :)?
We planned to go to the malay island of Tioman, for some diving and chillin - and planning was supposed to be my part. But since I had loads of work to do last week, wich rarely ever let me leave the office before 8 or 9, we had do skip the planning and go to something more intentual and sponateaous.

On a quick internet research - I picked viellieb on friday at midnight from the airport - we found out about this Trikora Beach on Bintan island, Indonesia, wich was 2 hours closer than Tioman was, and the the supposed ferry to Tioman was undiscoverable anyway. After getting up to late, and underestimating bus travel times - what? -I´m studying in Leoben, everything is 3 mins away - we missed the first ferry, but still arrived at 4:30pm local time in Tanjung Pinang, the biggest city on Bintan island.

Not knowing a lot about the place where we wanted to go, besides not knowing exactly where to go :) we tried to avoid any porters, taxi drivers, immediate best friends, and other assholes fishing for us human dollar notes. Somehow we managed to confirm hour Ferry back at 6 pm sunday (keep that time in mind!) - wich was perfect because it meant more time to spend here.
So now we tried to find a cab, that would bring us to that Trikora beach. Actual that might give you a wrong impression because we didn´t really have to search for one, but tried to get one that wouldn´t demand 25 euros for 30min ride in a "postbreakdowncar".
Well, we found one, after a while, but with a major problem/damage to the steering device, as we discovered on our 1 Hour!!! drive to Trikora. But at least we got there unharmed.

Since all this huts along the westcoast, are famous spots for exchange students of the numerous singapore universities, we´ve been brought to one of them - Shadys Shack - controversially a really fancy place.

Indonesia_Bintan_Trikora Beach

I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves, and will just mention our way back - In a taxi worse(!!!) than the one that brought us, trying to catch hour ferry (6pm, still remember?).
Well, floods of rain - a van without a windshield wiper and without sidewindows, trying to get to the ferry withn half an hour. *lol*
I just should have known it better...
It was after 6 already, and we still weren´t close to the ferry terminal, when I started thinking about a backup plan (which i set aside 10mins ago, to think about just in case) how to get Viellieb his flight. 6 am the other day, on "the other" island. Thats when I realised how helpless one can be 2hours far a place, impossible to reach without a proper transportation...

To spare you the minutes I sank more and more into desperation, I can gladly tell you we made it to Singapore, and my comrade caught his flight - well on time. But only after getting kicked of one Ferry we tried to sneak in, an intentionally remained bribery try, and the final gnosis "that everythings relative most of all time" ;)

I hope my last week wont suffer on the stress hormones I raised that day in indonesia, and my next trip to that - perception rich country, next weekend, well spare me untought on those "lessons learned in time"

keep it,
Helmuth

Me in the BIG city

Hi all,

Sorry for not posting so long, I tried to make it up and finally went downtown right into the CBD - Central Business District - and shot a couple of Fotos.
Just as I realised I went totally touristy - I made some Fotos of myself documenting how hard work it is to use this automatic mode. After running for and back - to the camera, back to my motive, for four or five times, I got all the attention around, and almost everybody close tried to get on "my" picture. Right after that I went crazy, shooting everything in my way, even my own shadow - and prooved that Lucky Luke isn´t alone ;)

Here should be a weblink to my Fotoalbum,
so have a look and witness how manhattenacious Singapur can look like.

Helmuth in da BIG City

Wee-shirts

Tja das ist die mickrige shopping Ausbeute.

Man beachte die Wöd-Brust-Matten-Schnauzer-Modells auf den Puma-Shirts.
Blauer Puli is ein Kapuzenpulli, schwarz-grauer eigentlich eine Weste.

Wählt weise!

I did it

Finally it happend, its three thirty and this post comes right out the office.

to myself," Ahh, it´s wonderfully calm here, if nobody else is around, maybe I should stay a little longer. - No damn it´s your weekend, go out, work out, sail out. Whatever you do, do it outside the office. - Okay, I´m going, i´ll just finish that tiny post it´ll only take... - out now, did you forget, you made a promise to yourself."

Well, I guess in the end..."shut up and go"