Travelogues

New Zealand, Australia, Thailand & Malaysia were some of the places that I traveled to these days. Not that I like these places, I traveled there for work. Most of these work trips were hectic and usually tightly scheduled with back-to-back meetings. These were usually followed by work dinner and/or emails till late into the nights.

Christchurch, NZ, was the least pacy of all the cities. This place had nice colonial architecture but very much a "ghost town" after 7pm. I were referencing to my favourite city, Hong Kong, but even by Singapore, KL or Taipei standard too. Christchurch, however, has nice, friendly people. The pace of life, in my impression, was considerably slow. It is a very self-sustaining country with srong farming anf agriculture communities. People there earned good salary and maintained quality of work-family life balance.

My Australia leg was usually hectic shuttling around Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. However, I had grown to like these cities. Sydney has its charm. It was very relaxing to enjoy dinner along the scenic and brightly lit view from Darling Harbour after a long day work. The weather was usually cooling ranging from 10 - 25 deg C with humidity around 40% - 65%.

Sydney is also home to the world famous & magnificent Sydney Opera House. One can take a boat ride from Darling Harbour to view the maginificent Sydney Bridge, stopping at the bustling Circular Harbour, enjoy a few hours at Luna Park, a theme park and watch sunset against the background of Sydney Opera House.

Traveling into the suburb, Redfern, will show you a different Sydney and can be a challenging experience. Redfern, was where the original aboriginals live. It was known for its high crime rate and classified "not so safe" for tourists. Most, if not all, of these aboriginals lived on social fund and did have a job. Neither did they have any skill. It was not uncommon to see drunkard lying around the pavement, group of rowdy youth with steel rods and people seating along the street - doing nothing. The nearest subway station had fence all round with security guards.

Melbourne was a decent place. It had good resturants, rainy weather and decent pace of life. Don't expect too much excitement like Sydney or HK. I particularly like Brisbane, home of the Great Barrier, Ayer Rock, Surfer Paradise and Sunshine Beach. A place of many young & beautiful people with relaxing attitude towards life. Nicely dress up, good food, morning beer and wine on race day. Who would pass such as a lifestyle?

Bangkok had its charm on me and I did not dislike this city. Unfortunately, it was not for no reason that people associated Bangkok with traffic jams, pollution, bargain buys, food and exciting nightlifes. Some peole liked them, some didn't. It was not easy to get around without a local guide especially to industrial area and suburbs. Taxi drivers, from the city, could not understand English and did not know the industrial/rural area well. Map was not as clear unlike Singapore or Australia.

I was told that shopping was inexpensive in Bangkok but I haven't found anything worth buying after so many trips there. Food was very affordable comparing to Singapore and Australia. I had, however, grown to love the massages and spa.

Thais, were however, very friendly people - overly friendly in some situation to my liking. I also felt that they were also rather insecure and, workwise, I were not too impressed with the quality that I had seen so far. I must say that I did not meet too many people or involved in sizeable project to make a good conclusion. However, labour cost was obviously significantly lower than Singapore and Malaysia.

More to come ...

Sydney

Some pictures from my previous Sydney trip.


Water Taxi Stand @ Darling Harbour


Submarine @ Darling Harbour



Sydney Bridge


Luna Park

Sydney Opera House

HAPPY 41st BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE

We celebrate our 41st Birthday today. Coincidentally, this is the last event held at our National Stadium. Both the event and the venue were significant in their own rights.

Singapore has come a long way as a country. We have grown from small fishing village into a cospomolitan city. Our port has has grown beyond basic loading & unloading activities into a world class supply chain logistics hub. Changi Airport and SIA have made a reputation for themselves for being safe, efficient with commendable service level.

Despite being a young nation, our economic growth has been trememdous year-in-year-out as compare to our neighbours and many developed economies. We are home to many world renounce multi-national companies such as Glaxo Smithkline, Baxter, Sony, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Medtronics, Chevron, Exxon-Mobile, Millenium & Copthorne and, of course, the list goes on... Local companies such as SingTel, Keppel Fels, Osim, Creative Technology, SIA, PSA, Raffles Hospital and many others have made their presence felt in their respective industries and around the region.

Then we have Jurong Island. The concept in itself deserved merit. Who in the world would come out with an idea to reclaimed and join small islands turning them into a chemical process hub.

National Stadium has been an icon for our sport accomplishment and a memorable place to many Singaporean, including myself. This is a place where we had out Malaysia Cup glory day, made famous our KALLANG ROAR and experienced of many sporting triumph.

I am a proud and happy Singaporean. How can we not proud to be a Singaporean? We have ....

Politically and socially stable country
Clean government
Good brand association
Sustainable economic growth
Reasonably safe environment to live, shop & party
Good transportation infrastructure and communication connectedness
Good educational framework
Good variety of food and indulgence
Reasonable living space
CPF
many more .....

The Ice Cream Maker

Quality is an on-going process. It starts from being committed, doing things bottom of the heart, involving people around you (both professional and personal circle including customers) and making improvement a habit.

Sounded simple?

Well, "The Ice Cream Maker", by Subir Chowdhury, made it so simple to understand quality. It was an excellent book that one can finished within 2 - 3hrs. The illustration used was plain vanilla of a company being turned around through listening to their customers and getting their act together to improve product quality and give the customer what they want.

1. Acknowledgement that there is room for improvement
2. Create an environment of trust and transparancy
3. Make commitment to continuous improvement
4. Listen to stakeholders
5. Involve stakeholders in making improvement
6. Encourage and reward improvement attitude
7. Accept feeback and constructive criticism

A simple book but a good lesson learnt!