I am in Dubai now!

I am in Dubai, United Arab Emirates now. A transit trip from Germany back to Malaysia. Hard to imagine this super-modern city is in the troubled middle east countries. We even went to the desert, ride camels and stay in desert tents! And the temperature reached 40celcius during the day! D*mn hot! Will be back soon...

Thanks

3 Oct 2005 - Time to say goodbye. Thanks everybody for the memorable time in Deutschland! ~Auf Wiedersehen!

UDE, TUEV and Opto

I am going back to Malaysia soon, after 16 months here. This place was never my home but it is certainly an invaluable experiance staying here. The university name is Universität Duisburg-Essen. We were always busy, 'cause nothing is fixed and we were kinda the early batch of Malaysia student here, so we need to learn alot about the system and the language. It so 'scheisse' to learn a new language in a few months and go for a technical exam! Even just to order food is a problem but the lecturer expect us to give opinion in German during exam! But we managed to survive. At first, I thought Germans are cold and serious. They are 100% serious during class but as we start our industrial training and get to know some, the perspective changed. I worked in Tuev for 3 months, some sort like government vehicle control. But no Mers or BMW... We need to setup a new control data bus system for vehicle and at first, it was d*mn stress... and a 1.5 hour journey there is sickening. But luckily the boss was very nice. Even treat me a nice lunch when my practical ended. I managed at least finished my part of the project and the boss even offer me to continue as a work student there. Haha! I bet he said like that to everybody when they are leaving. Then, the last 3 months is for thesis. My thesis is about optoelectronic and I really learned alot. Designing some sort of 1mm semiconductor. But luckily the supervisor is one nice guy. These Germans demand alot too... The presentation and the report are changed hundreds of time, until the very last day. Crazy! But at least we pass it on time. And to thank them, we cooked nasi goreng and char spagetti for everybody. Haha! Spagetti because mee is more expensive...

Oktoberfest 2005

Oh, Oktoberfest! You will really experiance "Germany" after you experiance this giant beer festival. It's true... We missed last year festival so we determined to catch this and we went on the very first weekend, representing Malaysia for the beer mission! Down south of Germany, the Oktoberfest is held annually from mid-Sept until early Oct and in Munich, the capital of the Bavaria region. It's beer for the whole two weeks so surely everybody there was happy and friendly. Most of the beer-drinking and eating and dancing was held in big tents that can cramped in 10000 people. We managed, luckily, to get a place in the "lion tent"... The food for everybody was a large pig-leg (kakibabi)! And also 1 liter of beer! Crazy! I barely managed to finish this 1 LITER of beer but the pig-leg is oh so simple... They said this grilled pig leg is one of the traditional German food and for one and half year here, this is the first time I saw and taste it. I just thought "long hotdog" are German favourite food. Haha! The Germans wore their traditional clothing to this festival and the girls wore skirt in this very cold autumn. But with all the beer, everybody will be "hot" surely. They stick to tradition better than Malaysian... And they get extremely friendly too, especially to foreigners... After the 20 Euros meal, everybody's face was red like monkey-ass but luckily, no mabuk. Outside the tent, it was more peaceful... a big fun-fair with a lots of rollercoasters, games and souvenir shops. Oktoberfest is really special and certainly an experiance. The Malaysian mission managed to survive with no alcohol-poisoning. If only Malaysia can do something like samsu-festival or just "yam seng" and realise that beer not too bad for the people...