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"

arabstreets

to all friends of the evergreen egoshooter
I found that road close to my office and the gym, accidentally but now it´s becoming more and more my favourite area. For fotos, (check the webalbums directory singapore`streets) its diversity, its food and its baars, especially the Shishas. I tried to catch some impressions, at day and night, since it´s the first place I discocered that has charme here.



Funny story besides, when i went the first time to Zam Zam, this restaurant, I had no idea what to order, especially because there was no menue, or pictures on the wall like in almost every other place. So i asked the guy for some beef, and he replied something, and since I hadn´t understood a word - just said "fine" what ever it was. So he brought me this bowl with that spicy soup in it, and cucumbers with ketchup. Well soup and salad as apetizer - perfect. So I thought just before everybody stared at me like I did something totally stupid. Just as I did - eating the sauce and spices for my ...propably meat rice.

cheers
Helmuth

3rd week

more and more this internships becomes a routine. You get up in the morning, way to early especially since michael and I started to do a morning run, and then you go to work until evening. If we still got the energy we´ll go to the gym, or rarely ever for a beer, some dinner on the way home, or seldom at home. Finally TV, book, or Laptop. And then it starts again. Since we didn´t do any trips yet I started to get bored of the city. Last sunday I even enjoyed to go to work on the next day.

I only can guess that I`m getting homesick - although - the wish for a good Schnitzel makes it pretty obvious ;)

cheers Helmuth
PS: check the webalbum for some new fotos

zweide Woche

Die 2te Woche liegt hinter mir, und mit ihr zum ersten Mal viel Arbeit. Ich möchte nicht allzu viel darüber schreiben, nur soviel sei gesagt: die Firma hat einen großen Auftrag bekommen, mein Chef ist damit sehr beschäftigt geworden, und ich mir selbst überlassen. Das ist eigentlich genau das was ich mir vorstelle, ich muss mich nur beherrschen nicht zu weit in die Materie einzutauchen sondern in erster Linie Output zu liefern. Nach einer kurzen Schrecksekunde freitags: „ du Helmuth, am Dienstag fliegt der Oskar“ hab ich ernsthaft in Betracht gezogen am WoE ins Büro arbeiten zu gehen.

Keine Angst, soweit ist es noch nicht gekommen. Vorerst nutze ich die WoEs zum entspannen, und Sport machen. Jetzt komm ich z.B. gerade aus dem Gym in dem sich Michael, Markus (Praktikant der Außenhandelsstelle) und Ich eingeschrieben haben. Bilder gibt’s dann wenn die Mukkis sprießen ;-) Es ist jedenfalls eine feine Sache um dem nine to seven – workaholic – leben zu entkommen. An den nächsten WoEs haben wir uns vorgenommen die nahe gelegenen Tigerstaaten mal zu erkunden. Aus dem Plan 2 Tage nach Bangkok zu fliegen ist vorerst nichts geworden, da’s keine Tickets mehr gab. Aber es winken ja noch andere Fleckerl um wenig Geld. Morgen ist Sentosa island am Plan. Eine Art Ferien und Partyinsel vor der Harbour Front Singapurs. Gestern haben wir das Gelände schon erkundet und dabei ein paar schöne Bilder vom dorthin führenden Cablecar geschossen. (siehe auch Webalbum)

Die nächsten Tage werden wir auch noch nutzen um vom zu Ende gehenden Singapore Great Sale zu profitieren. Asien ist halt der Kontinent der T-Shirts, und als alter Fan dieser großartigen Mode Erscheinung fällt es mir sehr schwer an all den Schnäppchen vorbei zu gehen. Das wars also von dieser Woche, diesmal auf Deutsch, damit ich’s nicht ganz verlerne.

Ministry of Sound

Hey all together, the second weekend and you'll never guess where I've been Saturday night. Yeah right - the “ministry of sound”. This famous club lies right in the middle of the Singaporean “Bermuda triangle” and is well known due to its bigger brother in London. So, “Herman the German” who also stays in the apartment, and I went downtown to Clarke Quay. Mainly to hash a look at the occuring Miss Reef election, but we were way to late, and so just got ourself some beer, which is – as I previously mentioned - a luxurious good down here. Getting the taste we decided to go to the ministry. Queues as long as in hollywood movies, fog from the cooler Aircon air drifting outside, giving the arriving Porsches, Ferraris and BMWs more effect, and grimmy looking bouncers at the doors. Once inside we got equipped with vodka-redbull for a lot of money, and I mean, a LOT.
So there we were in this sacred halls – so what to make out of this opportunity?
Dancing? Of course. Meeting women? One should think. Actually this turned out to be quite of a sausage party, which wouldn't be that big of a deal because my attentions lay somewhere else, but it's kind of an awkward feeling, dancing, surrounded by a pack of guys looking for score.
So after that mentioned jar, and two more drinks which happened to come free with the entrance fee as I found out later – I was standing in this place wondering what all this fuzz was about, and leaving it once more with that conclusion that clubbing and me, isn't going to work.

Weekend - hooraaay!

After one week of acclimatization this first weekend was very welcome - to just relax. Actually on Friday was “happy hour” again, this time in a nearby bar. There we met Linda, our bosses wife and had conversation for the first time with all the guys. Finding out that there where guys from Luzon and Mindanao (Phillies) and that K.C. had traveled through Europe in the eighties, just with a backpack and a sleeping bag. We got stories told how difficult it was to communicate with French people, and almost too familiar episodes in the Balkans. (to all my readers from the Balkans, be aware that I feel a special closeness and love to this region and that I understand under this term the region south of Vienna :-).
Slightly drunk – because somehow we happened to be quite thirsty – we decided to go home early to catch some sleep. We had plans for some sightseeing -wich we had to skip to Sunday, due to Oscars invitation to his Austrians Barbecue. Meeting there Kurt & Petra from Illmitz, Bernie a “Kiwi” with tyrolean accent, Emmsy a former Miss Singapore and Oscars kids Richard & Robert and having a good time. After Michael and I finished all the meat they bought just for us (as it seemed), and having the pleasure to enjoy some Weißbier and Schnaps, Kurt drove us right in the middle of Singaporean nightlife – Clarke Quay. You may believe it or not, but we only checked out where the club of the clubs was, famous “ministry of sound” and then went home. Turns out we’re getting old.

Funny thing besides: I figured why men married women in the first place. Your guess? Love – pshaw! It was ironing, definitely. After ironing all my shirts I came to the conclusion that the very first act of marriage must coincide somehow with men doing business and so wearing shirts. I agree, there is a calming effect, but it’s for sure gone after the 2nd hour :-$



On Sunday we did sightseeing. Together with Markus, an intern of the Austrian embassy, we visited the Singapore National Museum of History, Fort Glanning, Raffles Hotel, the Esplanade and the Riverside. Check the Webalbum for more Fotos.



The conclusion after this first week?
Well the lady at the airport was halfright – most of all Singapore stands for shopping. Despite the efforts of Singapores government to decorate this melting pot of cultures it’s still what it was meant to be ever since - a trading outpost - once for the british, now for the whole world.

So? - your orders, please!

About work.

Half of the week has passed and I actual have got work to do, already. My primary task is the modelation of an underground structure, a two tube tunneling - one three, one four lane tunnel – in Brisbane, Australia. Using this excavation model, I’m going to simulate the stresses and strain around it. This is done via a numerical program, in this case Examine3D by Rocscience, which calculates this data using a method similar to FEM, the so called boundary element method (BEM). Hence modeling of the excavation geometry means, discretizing its surfaces or meshing this surfaces with a 3dimensional triangulated boundary element net, in order to create a discrete series of equations a mathematical algorithm is able to calculate.

After getting used to the program, I’m right now searching and reading literature about the analysis and interpretation of the produced data, which is going to be the hardest part because the most theoretical, and due to it’s complexity ill occupy me at least the rest of the week.

I’m thinking back, two years now, when I failed in a course at university – numerical mathematics – and had to do it again. I was furious then, blaming the whole world but me, that this course was senseless, only created to give work to the institute for applied math, specific on only one actual program which was going to be outdated before I’d ever come to use it and over all to early in the 4^th term.

Well I still think it was to early in the 4^th, but knowing how to solve equation systems using Gauss-Seidel elimination procedures or what Q-R decomposition is, helps a lot when it comes to numerical simulation, which is exactly what I do. Who would have thought that, huh? :-P

Week 1

Since I´m still working on the Layout of the Blog, news are going to come at the end of the week! :)

Webalbum

So, there should be a Link now to my Webalbum, including all the Pics I´m going to make down here. Look in the sidebar on the right---->

Day 2, 29.06.2007

After refreshing 12 hours of sleep, I start wondering where Michael – the other intern – was, as he should have arrived at 06:30 local time. 6 hours and “some” phone calls he gets out of the cab with a, “you wouldn’t believe my last 24 hours” on his face.

After trying out Vicky’s noodles with Won Ton recipie, we hop on a bus to the office. Which was supposed to be our first day in the office turned out to be only 2 hours. After taking our workplaces - wahhooo got Internet and Skype - we are forced out of office at 5 pm. “Happy hour” – the new companies Friday-after-work-program was this week a dinner in a nearby restaurant.

Steem Pot is also a usual describtion for what we found there. A boiling pot with a spicy and a regular soup, and "all you can" eat to put in. And all you can eat doesn´t only mean as much as you want, it rather means everything a human beeing could possibly use as nutrition. Shortly after Vicky and Josephin (a draftswoman from the office) took over my plate and fed mee with what ever them pleased, I stopped asking - I just ate it. Just the cow-stomach turned out to be a little weird. The only thing I was actually affraid of, was the chineese fellow who guzzled his crab with such a joy that literally "die Fetzen flogen", without leaving anybody uncovered with stains on the whole table, and probably also the next. Sorry for not taking pictures, but I was actually worrying for my camera.

Later that evening the heavenly spiced soup turned out to be astonishingly digestible for a human stomach and after a while I fell a sleep, realizing to have finally arrived in Singapore!

Day 1, 28.06.2007

After arriving one hour late while I had an appointment with Vicky, the secretary of Geoconsult Asia Singapore - my employer - we finally met in my “tiny” apartment. This tiny apartment turned out to be quite a nice two storey flat with a huge living and dining room and to be situated on the “waterfront”. Unfortunately not the Pacific Ocean as one might have assumed, but the Bedok Resort Lake. So 30-34 degrees outside, aircon only in the bedrooms, that cries for a cooling jump to the lake. Yeeah, would so, if it wasn´t forbidden as almost everything here in the city of Fines. But still it´s a good place to live in a place with “4over” inhabitants. So running in the green should be possible – at least around 5 to 6 am.
Right after letting me put my stuff in the bed room, Vicky took me to a local supermarket to buy some groceries. A while later and packed with stuff like fish, prawns, instant noodles, soya and oyster sauce, we are back at the flat, and within seconds gone again to find the public transport way to work. Astonishingly smart ticketing systems blow away that middle age paper-stamp thing back home. Touchless cards you could also use for shopping in the sevenelevens make life much easier. When arrived in the 17th floor of the Shaw Tower on Beachroad in “Bugis” I meet the 10 people counting staff I’m going to work with in the next month. Senior Engineers from Swiss, China and Austria as well as CAD-drawers from Singapore and the Phillies. I’m actually a little afraid to work with (if not compete), this 20 year old wiz kids from china ;-). So much for that day – hope you stay tuned!