Beautiful.Mind.Life

I left Kemaman at half past eight this morning with two other ELITE members. We’re going to the offshore training which takes place in Pasir Gudang. This will be my first time to reach Johore, officially. I knew I’ve been there, but I couldn’t remember anything. I was too small that time, perhaps.

Our coordinator has booked a villa in Tanjung Puteri Golf Resort, here in Pasir Gudang. As we arrived, I completely lost my sanity. This is, by far, the biggest resort I’ve ever been. It’s probably much bigger than KSB, the place where I go to work everyday, where hundreds of oil and gas companies are stationed. It’s so huge, with three 18-hole golf courses and a 52-bay driving range, as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Tennis courts, futsal arena, horse riding field, and even a football field, are available too. How amazing.

We’ve checked ourselves in a villa called Mahligai. With 4 bedrooms, each with its own dedicated bathroom, this is luxurious, for me at least.

Enjoy the pictures!

PS: This is golfers’ heaven, surely. Family gathering is okay too, but nothing much to do here, as the villas are at the heart of the golf courses. Compared to this Tanjung Puteri Golf Resort, Awana Kijal is indeed, ‘cap ayam’. =)

Exterior views of Mahligai.

First floor, with exquisite view of the Plantation Course.

The rooms. Mine is the bottom left. See my jacket?

Ground floor. I personally like the split level dining/living.

I’ve redeemed my HSBC’s reward points last week, and yesterday, I’ve got it. A Victorinox travel organiser and an Oral-B Vitality tooth brush, powered by Braun. Excellent. Incredibly fast by HSBC reward center, less than two weeks. Unlike Maybank, I got my Omron electronic weighing scale after more than a month.

I also made an order for two pairs of Crocs, Tideline and Prepair. My wife’s colleague was the dealer or something like it. They told that they can sell several types of Crocs with a very tempting price (the price is around half of the retail price). Rejected stuff, they said. I’m always a big fan of Crocs but they retail price for each pair is rather ridiculous, although I have to admit that they make excellent flip-flops and shoes. Amazingly light and comfy.

Unfortunately, due to the crazy out-of-the-world orders they received, they can only fulfill my Tideline request. The others, including my wife’s, had to be cancelled, or delayed, or whatever, but they did refund. I received my pair yesterday, thanks to Ms Wawa, my wife’s friend. I rushed back home to try it out. I knew it would fit nicely, because I tested the size few days back at Crocs in One Utama. My size is 9, but they said Crocs’ sizes are one step smaller, so I ordered size 10. Got it unpacked, I slipped my left foot in (my wife gets angry whenever I put on my shoes, starting with the left side). Whoaaaa! It didn’t fit as it should be. I checked the size again. Still, it shows 10 (42). Why? I thought I got it tested the other day. Or did I test on 11?

Aaaaahhhhh there goes my raya shoes. Bummer =(

PS: Going to Timberland today haha…

I flew here to Abu Dhabi on the 10th of May, for a course arranged by my company. I was looking forward to see the culture and lifestyle of the people around here, not so much interested in the course actually. In the end, it turned out that this course is probably one of the most interesting courses I have ever attended.

Let’s not go through all the details of this course, or it will take a few weeks to complete this article.

It was 42 degree the day I arrived. Yeap, hot as hell. It seemed like a bad sign, why on earth did I signed up for this course here. On the brighter side, I felt that I am lucky to be borned in such a nice country (I used to curse Malaysia has such a hot and crazy atmosphere). Nevertheless, the hot temperature here is the only bad thing about this place I guess.

Abu Dhabi is an extremely safe place to stay. One of the taxi driver I met here said that this town has an approximate population of 4 million people, more than three quarter of them are Indians, Philippins, Indonesians and some from Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Only about eight hundred thousands are the local citizens. Imagine all the shops are all occupied with these immigrants, even the taxi drivers and megastores casual labors. Infact, you will see one original Arabian after seeing ten to fifteen immigrants as you walk down the pedestrian walkway.

They must really making good fortune in this country, as I heard that the cheapest house rent is about 3000AED (multiply with 0.85 to get into Malaysian Ringgit) a month, and the cheapest hotel is about 600AED per night stay. Even with this extremely high pays they have to afford monthly, you can still see them around texting with Nokia N91 or Sony Ericsson w960i, with iPods earbud inside their ears.

A friend of mine, a Brazilian, went to Dubai on the last weekend (it takes about two hours to get there by taxi). He came back with an explosive story that the cost of a can of Coke costed him 22AED, and he had lunch there with three of his friends at about 600AED. Another friend of mine suggested that we should go to Dubai and have a look around at the Burj Al Arab, the 7 stars hotel where you can find a hotel room that costs you a mere 50000AED a night. Luckily I thought that it wasn’t a good idea to go Dubai on the weekend as time is a major factor which stops us from having a nice sightseeing around the westernized-urban Dubai. If I agree with him, I will have to pay about 200AED just to get into the lobby and look around.

Back to Abu Dhabi.

As a whole, this big city is a nice place to take your family on a vacation trip, but make sure you come on winter, as summer here will get your skin burnt with almost 55 degree centigrade heat. But it will be better if your company or whoever gives you a full sponsorship on accomodations as the hotels and apartments here aren’t easy to get, and quite pricey. For shoppaholics and tech brats, this place can be a good spend-my-money destination. Goodies here are slightly cheaper than in Malaysia, and electronic appliances can be really cheap. You can get a Sony DSC-H50 500AED cheaper than the outdated Sony DSC-H9 in Malaysia.

Overall, everyone is most welcome to come here. It surely is a nice place to spend your quality family time.