Farewell Pune

Today is the last day working in Pune IBM, tomorrow morning I will take a cab with my Belgian colleague to Mumbai(180 km ride) as our flight will leave from Mumbai to Brussels. Anyway, he is leaving tomorrow night, while I will extend my India trip in Mumbai until Saturday night.

I did some visits on Saturday with the colleague. We rented a private taxi and went to stroll around Pune city. There were simply people everywhere, kind of the same impression as in China. However, infrastructure in India is much ruined and old. Roads condition is unbearable as they are not well planned, and small constructions scatter here and there to block the traffic. Anyway, we managed to visit the Pune Central Mall (though I didn't buy anything), the famous Laxmi shopping street (well see the pictures...), Shaniwar Wada Palace and Saras Baug park.

Sunday I stayed most of the time in the hotel watching movies, though I did take time to visit a few nice shops to hunt some local traditional clothes like Kurta. I missed the beginning of the closing ceremony of Beijing Olympic, but anyway it didn't look as glamorous as the opening ceremony, so I didn't really miss much.

Tonight we are going to celebrate with a big dinner for our last working day, I will certainly go for some cocktails again :) (they really have vast selections on cocktails and they are quite cheap compared to Europe!)

Laxmi road


Shaniwar Wada Palace


*Cow* on the shopping street...

From Pune

Just a quick hello from Pune, India. Weather here has been quite welcoming, at least we haven't been greeted with thunder storm or heavy downpour. It's quite humid and warm here, more and less like Malaysia, may be a bit dryer though. Until now I still haven't got any chance to do sight-seeing or shopping, the whole group has been working very hard on the project from 8am to 8pm, but every night we managed to enjoy a big dinner feast in nice Indian restaurants before heading back to hotel and sleep. I am really looking forward to this Saturday to start spending my Rupees...

Oh yes, traffic in Pune is unbelievable, I have my international driving license with me but I would never dare to drive in this city! There's almost no sense of 2 way directions, you can drive in both directions on a one-way lane!

Anyway, I will narrate more of my sojourn here when I am back to Brussels :)

Visiting India!

Just confirmed the flight... I will be leaving to Mumbai and Pune from 17th August to 31st August on business trip. This new project I am joining has intense collaboration with the development team in India, so I will be going with 6 other colleagues to India to understand their working environment, current progress, project installation, networking and to attend numerous workshops and conferences. Pune is the academic center of India with lots of universities and coroperate headquarters.

Normally I should be back on 29th, but I have prolonged the flight to go on personal trip in Mumbai. How can I miss this most populated city in India and soon to be second most populated city worldwide without paying a proper visit!

Mumbai here I come!

P/S:

1. Sorry for my good friend HHH who is coming to visit me from London in the weekend of 25th... Hope I can make it up in the next planned trip!
2. Also to Man, that I cannot come and fetch you in Brussels airport on your return from HK!
3. And to Alessio, because I promised to help you move house and drive you to get stuffs from Ikea!
   

New Project!

I just changed my project on 1st August. Officially finished working with the team in Flemish National TV and Radio station, now I head towards the Ministry of Finance. It's a brand new place with 2 big towers, really modern setting and cosy working environment. It is located just next the North Station, which means a few minutes walk from my place. :) So no more morning driving and hasty traffic! Project is very challenging with lots of analysis works and control on the output coming from India development team. Let's hope for a smooth start and great end!

this is my new office :) Another twin tower after my previous adventures in KLCC

Some events in July...

I have been lazy lately with lots of blogs lagging behind. Certainly there have been many events happening, if you don't know that it's summer time here in Belgium. So I will briefly list out what I have done:

1. 4/7 - 6/7 A weekend trip to Butgenbach with all my fellow sportive friends. It's located at the picturesque Butgenback lake with great mountain view surrounding the site. I have done a lot of sports there: badminton, walking, kayak, swimming and etc. The best part was certainly the eye-candy thingy, but I won't tell you much here :)
   
   
   trying out difficult challege to stand on the kayak...
   
   
   
   photo session during the badminton games
   
   
   
   me, dropped in the water due to technical problem... :)
   
   
   
   
2. I went to one of the biggest and well-known music festivity in Belgium: Gentse Feesten. Luckily I have a Malaysian buddy who lives there and was willing to give us a city ride. Nice music, live concert and people were everywhere!
   
   
   river view at Gentse Feesten
   
   
   one of the decades of concerts
   
   
   
   
3. Of course how can I forget the Belgium National Day on the 21st of July! Although I didn't really do anything spectacular. I went to have Dim Sum with a bunch of Chinese friends in Antwerpen city. On the way back we saw some army aircrafts scrolling across the sky in high speed and damn low. I was so distracted trying to watch the sky while I ignored the road in front of me! (mind you I was the driver...) Anyway at night I played badminton until 11pm, and when I was on the way back home, I passed by the Royal Park and was just in time to see the fireworks! So I quickly found a place to park my car nearby and went to watch the fireworks at closed distance. It was really nice, I was there in the crowds with my tight sportive short and a wet shirt. Didn't know if I really scared off somebody...
   
   
   standing alone in the night street watching firework in sport suit...
   
   
   
4. Then 24th I took a day off to go to the famous Breden beach in Belgium to take advantage of a summer sunny day in Belgium (oh yes, sunny day is rare during summer in Belgium...). Mind you it's a naked beach, but I just camped at the beach next to the naked beach as I didn't prepare to get all naked for the sake of timidity. It was a great day out with nice tan skin as reward in the evening. We went to Ghent again on the way for the Gentse Feesten and had dinner there.
   
   
   Sunset view on Breden beach
   
   
   
   people dancing during the feest
   
   
   
   
5. On 26th I went to the Belgium fair not far from where I live. It's a yearly fair that takes place the whole August. Price of game participation is of course way too expensive compared to those in Malaysia. Besides, it's not easy to win, nor not that fun in my humble opinion. The difficulty level is high as the prizes given are quite valuable. I still very much prefer the fair in Malaysia where you can play cheaply with great fun for more simple prizes. After all you are going there for fun but not to win a fortune...
   
   
   lots of excitements to be pursued
   
   
   
   enjoying my favourite snails cooked in celery and spicy soup