It's good to be home~

Finally, i'm home~. I used to envy people who go on business trips, can travel to see the world, explore etc... But those that went often say, no time to explore, boring, nothing fascinating etc.. Now i totally understand... In Houston, initially i had free time to explore, but when i drove all the way to the shopping centre, i juz barely walk ard, not even entering the stores, den i left.. Maybe it's the feeling of being alone.. even though the place could be damn nice, you feel like taking pics, but the pic will not have you, even if have... you're still alone... No one to share your joy..

It doesnt help when you've got to prepare for meetings, trainings etc, and when you have free time, you juz wan to lie on the comfy bed, watch movies, laze ard... so.. biz trips are not tat fascinating, unless you've companion & time to explore tgt..

Anyway, enff of complaints... time for pics!!

Met up with Stella, a colleague who used to be from Hong Kong, & my room mate Dany

It's so fortunate/unfortunate tat when i told him i'll be going back to houston, he mentioned he'll be there as well! We drove past a couple of places which we visited when we were there last year.. It's been 1 yr!! damn fast! Ok i know, sounds a bit gay, but den, it's good to reminicise the good old days.. =)

See, dany nv fails to amaze me. Within few days in Houston, managed to get a 'girlfrd'. Respectz

Wanted to meet with the rest of the Next gens,but due to hurricane.. nv got a chance..

Anyway, here's the Hilton hotel which i stayed for 2 nites, den kana chased out.. Quite gd, with super cold Air Con.. realli super cold.. shiok! i can juz laze under the comforter all day loh, & i realli did tat. =) Forgot to mention they provide mouthwash as well! I don noe why all hotels in US doesnt provide toothbrush & paste.. wtf.. pple in US don brush??

Haha. I can only take these kind of pics... cos i'm alone!! sianz.. don even feel like taking pics when im there. (thats quite unusual) lol.

The 3rd hotel i moved to... Marriott Courtyard.. not very nice though...summore internet is wired, i cant laze in my bed & do work... sianz..



Btw, i spend alot of my computer times downloading movies in US.. lol. damn fast, got alot of movies to watch, that helps me to tide thru the hurricane wkend.. =)

Stayed in Metterra Hotel in Edmonton. It's directly on the party street in edmonton.. but... nothing much... juz a stretch of pubs.. thats all... I went into 1 of the pubs name FUnky Buddha, what a name.. It's a Salsa club where pple were dancing Salsa! so cool! i wanna learn!!

Comfy bed

Nice view from 6th floor

Roads running perpendicular to train, ma jiam in movies

Nice view while driving

I was quite lucky. Edmonton is known for their below freezing point temperature. In Jan, it can be as cold as -48C. yes... -48Celsius! Crazy man. If you wet your hair & walk out, ur hair would freeze! lol sounds fun. Thankfully, the temp now is about 10-25C.. juz nice for me. =)

Went to visit West Edmonton mall, supposedly the biggest mal in the world, with water theme park, aquarium, ice skating rink, shooting range, casino etc.. plenty of shopping!

Water Theme Park

Sealion Performance

Pirate boat~

Shooting range!!

Wow, look at this guy, si bei sak!

A very good shooter indeed! Cant believe hes tat gd!

Looks a bit familiar huh

Yeah~ It's me!! Tried the pistol shooting, 50bullets, abt 50 CAN bucks. quite fun!!

In the path of Hurricane Ike

Thanks for those who are concern, I'm safe & sound in Houston, survived the Hurricane, but the aftermath is even more frightening than the Hurricane itself.....

Thursday (11 Sep)
Houston City Mayor issued a Mandatory Evacuation Order for residents living in the coastal area. 15 feet of storm surge predicted, 115 mph (miles per hr) wind, definitely enough to deal a life threatening blow to the region.

Work in office only lasted half a day so that the affected people have enough time to pack & evacuate their homes.


Friday (12 Sep)
Hurricane Ike predicted to hit Houston City at Sat morning 3am. City advised to stock up food, water ,necessities, maintain full gas tanks in cars.

Hotel staffs at Marriott assured patrons things will be fine, they have backup power generator, sufficient food & water to tide us through. " Fill your bathtubs with water, JUST IN CASE the water pumps are damaged, you can still have water." I did try... but guess what, water just drained off despite me putting that stopper.

"For the past two storms, our hotel are not affected at all, so you do not have to worry." That comforted the patrons (including me)

Sat (13 Sep)
Stayed till 2am, 'anxiously' awaiting for the storm to arrive. But everything seems normal, occasional strong gusts of winds accompanied with rain.. Went to bed..heard some noises from zinc plates or metal objects, didnt bother & continued sleeping...

6am.. Realised power is cut becos i left my toilet light on while sleeping, but my room is pitch dark.. Switched on the lights + TV, nothin happens..But corridor lights still on... Nevertheless, went back to slp..

10am.. Rise and shine. Still no power.. went to wash up.."holy shit!" No water from taps! Thankfully i bought a gallon of water for use.. Went down to check it out.. Hotel staffs just confirmed that they lost power & water.. & that also means NO Air Con... Went around to check the damage...

Zinc Roofs, steel chimneys went flying..



This is Ibrahim, a Sales Mgr in Dubai Office, went the storm with him. We were walking down the emergency exit since the Hotel elevators were down.. 9 storeys...



Realised that the ceiling of the hotel ballrom collapsed! Whole ballroom level was flooded, ankle level water depth.. The inital plan was to evacuate people into the ballroom in case storm was bad & shatter room windows.. Imagine how many would be killed if we were all gathered in the ball room..


The top level rooms are wet as well, as water seeps through the ceiling & soaked the floor... Imagine without Air Con, wet floor... that sure stinks...


The staffs are almost done scooping up the water..



Leaves were scattered all ard the ground



Windows of cars were smashed.. Thankfully my car survived.



Windows of the opposite office building were shattered, cant image the damage there



Trees uprooted..



Went to take a look at my nearby office.. This is prior storm...








This is a picture After... Noticed the big 'O' flew away, nowhere to be found, trees fallen...




Lamp post collapsed, dangling on the traffic light cables.. If it falls on cars....



Collapsed tress right outside the apartment I used to live in (last year)



Roofs & chimney parts landed on the ground...



'Jack in the Box' signs blown away~



Malfunction traffic lights



Picture of the week - Collapsed petrol station



Flooded roads.. this used to be underpass...



See the water level?? almost reaching top of tress!!




Americans swimming in flooded underpass.. One of them floated across, a woman was shocked as she tot she saw a body......



Depth of water - 14 ft = 4-5metres!



Flooded roads...



Ruins everywhere...

You thought the worst is over??? Nah... it just got started....

Drove around to find a foodmart to buy water & food.. None! drove all the way close to downtown, finally came across the mart at petrol station.. thank god.. Many were driving ard for a long time & were happy to finally found this.

Marriott hotel serving crappy food, ham & toast for dinner. Decided to drive all the way down to a restaurant that we came across in our aftnn recce. Apparently, it seems it's the only restaurant opened in the city!It still has power & water! But guess wat... it's FLOODED, not with water, but people!!!

Queue goes TWO ROUNDS in the restaurant..

Reach 645pm, ordered food at 830, started eating at 9pm!! Almost 3 hrs!!! faint.. But it's worth the wait.. good food with chocolate cake as dessert! Should be thankful we could find someplace to eat!!

Went back to hotel, still withou AC, Power & water! room is damn hot & pitch dark! Decided not to take the shit, went ard hunting for vacancies in other hotels. And guess wat, we still pay the same rates even though the hotel has no power & water... Went on waiting list in Hilton hotel & Bingo!!! Got a room at 12am!!! With power, AC & water!!! Woots. Super cold AC they got there!

Sun (14 Sep)

2nd day where most part of the city don have water & power.... Stayed in hotel all day to catch up on slp (long saturday dealing with the shit). Super marts are starting to open, people queuing for hrs juz to get water & food.. it's crazy... Went back to marriott to take a look, STILL no power & water, i wonder how the guests survived..

Went to search for dinner again..... hard time finding one, but eventually did. All the streets were dark.. pitch dark, except for car headlights. It's like resident evil, you're the only car driving on the empty,destructed streets; waiting for zombies & hounds to pounce on you...

Mon (15 Sep)

Just when i thought i'm in good hands...Hilton hotel drop me another shit.. say i'm due to check out TODAY! Wtf.. i told them i'm booked till tomorrow, but they said they're know they're full on monday even before i was given the room on Sat... WTF.. the reception guy screw me up big time... Gotta go in search for another hotel with power & water... Apparrently, alot of hotels are fully booked as alot of people have their home wrecked by the Hurricane & staying put in hotels...

Finally found a hotel to stay in.. Marriott courtyard.. Cant believe i have to stay in 3 hotels in 1 week!! wtf... Guess that's real bad luck, but looking at the bright side, i'm still safe & sound, roughing it out... & STILL, Marriott hotel is without power & water.. Lucky i made the right decision to move out instead of waiting for the power to come on....

TV news kept 24hrs live coverage on the Hurricane Ike, apparently, more than 50% of Houston is without power, 80% without water... Homes in Galveston were TOTALLY wrecked.. all that's left were wood, debris on the shores... Unbelievable.. Even in the city, roofs & ceilings were torn apart... Crazy shit man... People queueing up for food & water, living in darkness...

This left me wondering... why did Houston get such a huge damage??

1. Traffic lights were hung on cables.. power cables left exposed, dangling on poles...

-Obviously that made power vulnerable! any falling trees would have cut the cable & disconnect power!! Why don't they just install them undergrd??!?! Invest abit of money dude!

2. Houses are not made of solid concrete. Mostly wood, some with steel foundation but sealed with wire mesh & clay(or some weak stuffs) that LOOKED like concrete.. When you knock on it, you will feel it's hollow & vulnerable..

- Why use this?!?!?!? Even in lebanon, Dubai, Singapore & CHINA, we ALL use solid concrete. Why would you use wood & some weak materials!?!?! It's not like you don't know your country would experience hurricanes & tornadoes. Some people explained they did this because insurance would cover reconstruction.. & Reconstruction creates jobs, if destroyed, they just build again.. & again & again... what a way to boost employment rate huh... nice..... (not my theory though)

Nevertheless, it can be a good lesson for me... pampered Singaporeans like me never knew what's a natural disaster.. what is it like without power & water.. Never seen flooded roads, torn roofs, shattered cars... At least i realised how fortunate it is back home... Oh ,& thankfully i've Ibrahim as companion to tide over this shit.. =)

Hurricane Ike

It's official. Government has issued a Mandatory Evacuation Order for those living in the coastal area. Seems bad.. Thankfully im slightly above the coastal area, so no need for evacuation. But the high wind from the storm might do some damage... THings are getting heated up. Alot of people rushing to get food & water & plywood to cover houses. Gas stations are crowded, by evening time, a number of gas stations are already empty.. It seems just like in the movies...

As for me, i'm doing nothing, hiding in hotel. Was told by 1 of the staffs that for Katrina & other storms, guests had been hiding in hotel, everything was normal & nothing affected.. I hope that will be the way.... training today was cancelled as they let people to go home, get evacuated etc... Friday will not be working since Hurricane will be here.. Seems exciting...

But the worse thing is... my plans for this weekend failed!!!! flights cancelled... My poor ju~ =(

Houston~

Off i go, from Here.....

To here! Guess where?!?!?

Still no idea??? See this!

Yes, i had a stop over in Moscow Russia! Sounds exciting huh. At least it's something new, not LA, not Japan or Taiwan. =) Something Weird abt the airport is that they're allowed to smoke in airport. They have booth/stations that look like telephone booths or internet stations along the airport, but they're for smoking, with ash trays... faint.

The next thing i learn about Russia, a whole lot of them don speak english. Most of the announcements are in Russian, i've no clue what they were talking. When i took a pic of the duty free shop, a woman in uniform came and spoke to me in Russian, then walk away. Totally no idea wtf she was trying to tell me. Sounds like "you're really handsome!" or maybe "you look cool while phototaking, are you professional?" Or perhaps, "no photo taking pls.." I choose to believe the first two. =)

Final Destination~

The plane ride was tiring.... 10hrs straight to Moscow, with not much interesting movies on board.. Or maybe it's becos i've downloaded & watched most of their interesting movies. Lol. Seats were small & cramp, i don know why everyone says SIA has comfortable seats... am i expecting too much??

From Moscow to Houston was good! nobody sitting beside me, all 3 seats to myself... i lie down completely over the 3 seats, AWESOME! better den first class!!! Maybe it's too comfortable, thats why i slpt TOO MUCH!!! Painful consequence later on...

Here's my car~ Chevy Impala. A new model, quiet & powerful & big!! Hmm.. just like.... the new Camry? or maybe Mark X. Beautiful~

As usual, the Marriott Hotel~

Nice twin bed configurations...

Comfy bedings.. Just that they don have ceiling lights, only lamps, which might not be bright enff

So no choice, i gotta grab my Light Sabre~ =)

Despite a comfy room, i had serious jetlag!!! faint. Sat slpt from 10-2am, den i couldnt slp! toss & turn till 5am den fell aslp till 12pm. Sunday was BBBAADDDD! 12-1am slping, THAT'S ALL!! Toss & turn till 7am den head down to office! faint. Now it's getting better.

Went to visit different facilities in Houston, nice & big. Training was slow on the 1st day but 2nd day was informative.. =) Last day of training tomorrow. =)

Looking forward to Friday!!! OH... but Houston is gonna experience a hurricane!!! faint.. category 3! Hopefully it's not gonna be bad.. Heard the coast area are already evacuating!!!

Maybe as Singaporeans, we are not exposed to natural disasters, so we don noe how sever it is. so i wasnt exactly scared or worried... hmmm... we'll see how it turns out. =)