Selamat Manyambut Hari Kemerdekaan yang ke 50.
And a very happy 30th. birthday to my cousin...
Semoga Allah murahkan rezeki dan memberi kesihatan yang baik untuk beribadat kepadaNya.. Amin..
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, D0ha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
Yesterday, we had another makan-makan. This time is at Zal’s new apartment. His new apartment is just next door from his previous. Moved from #37 to #36 – a bigger apartment with three rooms. I wonder who is going to stay there with him..
Hello 36...
This time, I was tasked to cook. The main dish for the day, as requested was Nasi Kerabu. My third time preparing Nasi Kerabu.. I never tried this in Malaysia but here, with support from friends and their compliments, I managed to improve in my cooking :-)
You can read more about this makan-makan in Zal’s blog.
Enjoy some photos…
An old friend in D0ha invited us to enjoy the home-cooked food last night. MNAM just got back from 6-weeks long home trip last week and invited few of us for dinner.
Last night supposed to be our group weekly bowling night. I managed to get confirmation from few other Malaysians to join our activities.
Few calls, SMSes and we all set to be at the Centre by 8:30pm. Prior to that, Zal, ZI, DK and myself had our dinner at Minang Restaurant.
Unfortunately, once we reached there, we saw bunch of people outside the building with numbers stiched on their shirts. Also, there were banners with Western Union on it. All of them were speaking in a familiar language. Quite a familiar language in Doha.
We walked in and found out they were having a bowling tournament. They as in Pin0y from the whole Gulf countries. Other people who were not in the tournament cannot play that night.
Am very surprised at the Centre attitude for not calling us and other regulars earlier to inform about the cancellation of our lanes booking. The tournament was not planned overnight! By right it should not.. and surprisingly the Centre never said anything when we booked the lanes last week. Although they were very apologetic about it, I was a bit reluctant to accept it. But what can we do.
Anyway, we ended up at our ususal hang out place --> Coffee Beanery Ramada Junction... :-)
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, D0ha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
Next weekend, am going for a trip to Bahrain. This is part of teh visa run series that I have todo. Last time, when I was on business visa, I have to do this every three months, now since I am on tourist visa, I am doing it bi-monthly.
At first my plan to stay 2 nights in Bahrain. However, since BH could not come, I decided to spend only one night, leaving DOH on Friday morning and returning Saturday evening. I invited Zal to join me.
Plan to stay at cheap hotel within walking distance to area of interest (read: souq, malls) but the regional/local hotels are pretty expensive. Might as well stay at inernational brand hotels. Right now, still contemplating whether to rent a car or not since I was told it is hard to hail a cab in Bahrain.
Anybody in Bahrain? :-)
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Sadd, D0ha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
Last night, we had a makan-makan session at AI/MR new villa. I organized the makan-makan on behalf of the them to commemorate three occasions:
- House warming
- AI 26th. birthday
- Welcoming the new citizen of the worlds (the baby is due in October, however, since there are lots of us are going back for Eid, this is the time to do congratulate the proud parent-to-be)
Although I invited around 20 of Malaysians in Doha, only three-quarter of them turned up. Anyway, we did have a good time. Apart from us, AI/MR also invited their work colleagues from the station.
Here are some photos of us enjoying ourselves. More photos will be added once I got them from other friends..
This morning,I received two guests, Alessio and Marco from Italy. They are on the way back from their two-weeks vacation in Malaysia and having a 6 hour stop-over in Doha. I volunteered to drive them around in Doha since Friday is an off day for me.
Alessio contacted me through hospitalityclub.org, a forum for citizens of the world who love to travel and fond of understanding local culture. The forum is managed by volunteers and it is a good way to connect with each other who share the same thing. Do visit the website and register yourself.
I picked them from the airport at 7am and drove around Doha and had a breakfast at PAUL at Villagio. We covered most of places in Doha within 3 hours only. See how small Doha is. So, for those people out there, who are planning to transit in Doha, do contact me if you need a stopover package :-)) - just make sure it is on Friday or Saturday :-)
As of today, my roll off date is end of September this year. After that, I don't know what will happen to me. Since I am attached to Spore office, by default (yup.. by default :-p), I have to go back to my home office. And I am trying very much to avoid it. It will be costly for me moving to Spore. I will be treated as local staff - meaning, find my own accommodation... [sigh...]
But this is my career, I mean I dont have to go back to Spore if I dont feel like it. I can just resign and find another job. Right now, here are what I have encountered:
Option 1
Stay with the current company. Go to Spore and find accommodation. Then be sent to another country for project. Then, what happen to the accommodation? hampeh..... keep on paying even not staying there? Right now, 70% of me say resign from this company... hmmm....
Option 2
Transfer to EM - which means transfer to head office. The chance is I have to remian in the ME area if I do this. To do this, I need leadership support from my current office (to release me) and new office (to accept me). EM mostly concentrate on the third world countries, the developing countries. The current project is still going on and will continue until next year.If I transfer and be in the region,I may have to support the project. Ahh... this iswhat I don't want..the key issue here is "I don't want to be in the current project".
Option 3
Opportunity in the Caspian region. Yup.. those -stan countries :-) I can only be certained about this opportunity next month - should they make an offer. The only drawback is that I need to relocate to one of those countries. How are the conditions of those countries after Soviet and wars? The major question is whether I want to relocate or not - which at this point of time, my heart still say NO. But then, what jobs available for me in Asian region generally or my own country? hmmm......
Option 4
Not sure whether this is an option or not. I went for an interview last July (unexpectedly.. they called me and luckily I was in KL at that time). Then they wanted for another interview and willing to do a video conferencing with me. Until now, I haven't heard from them despite emailing them my availability. Anyway, say I got through the interview, would I willing to work with international company based in Malaysia? One thing about these companies is their international culture seems to fade and has been localized so much. I was with one of this such companies. The culture in local office is.. what is the best word to describe it... terrible? Hmm.. maybe this is not an option since tehre is no offer at all...
Well... I need to think and act fast.... I have less than a month ....
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, Doha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
Next week, there will be another gathering, hope to be a big one...
Thanks to Zal for teh photos. I brought my camera but the battery was out...
Some of the guests at the beginning
Cerita CINTA in Doha :-))
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, Doha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
As usual, Tuesday night is our bowling night. Normally we start at around 8:30pm and finish it by 10:30pm. Just nice to go back and went to bed.
Some of us at bowling alley and Zal's trademark pose.....
However, last night, it was different. We were celebrating Shah's birthday as well. Pretty young chap with a 3 year old kid.. feel so old now :-
Nearly 20 people turned up and we occupied 4 lanes. It took us 2 hours to finish 2 games before proceeding to usual lepak place, Coffee Beanery. It was last night that the first "Happy Birthday" song was sung in Malay at the Coffee Beanery.
At Coffee Beanery, Ramada Junction (Top - Friends, Bottom - Birthday boy blowing candles with his son and Mr. & Mrs.Shah)
Next Tuesday, there will be another bowling session and I am inviting those in Doha to join us. We normally be there around 8pm.
And to Shah, Happy Birthday...
~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, D0ha
~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~
Yesterday, together with couple of other friends, we set up a temporary mover company.. illegally :-))
Morning shift
We helped AI and his wife MR moving from their current villa to a mansion. Yupp.. a huge mansion.. just for two of them plus a baby in two months time. What a lucky couple... as AI always say, "Rezeki baby.." He may be right...
Here are some photos of the new mansion. We will be having a mansion warming gathering cum AI's birthday celebration cum baby shower in couple of weeks.
Some photos of their new mansion.
Last night, around 10:30pm, KM with Shah and family came over to my place... thought that they wanted to go clubbing at Paloma InterCon, but actually they are inviting me, Zal and NN to go crabbing at Simaisma. Crabbing is popular during the full moon summer night where the tides are low. Three years in Qatar, I never joined others for crabbing. For me, it is just a waste of time looking for crabs :-))
Driving to Simaisma (on the way to Al-Khor) took us less than 30 minutes. Unfortunately, when we reached there, we found only a couple of very small crab :-( At the end, we became "tikus putih" for KM to test his new Sony DSLR to take photo at night.
