Trident Hilton Gurgaon

Lets just say that I was impressed beyond words when i stepped into the Trident...just look at the photos....

Trident Hilton Gurgaon
Distinguished as the best hotel in India, voted as “India’s Leading Business Hotel for 2005” at the coveted World Travel Awards in London; a business hotel with a difference. Set in an expanse of 7 beautifully landscaped acres, the building has an imposing yet serene presence, a resort like ambience. It is characterized by domes, long corridors and walkways, inner courtyards, reflection pools and fountains.

The cheapest room is USD400.... in India to fly domestic is more expensive than to fly to an international destination...that means to hold your wedding and fly the whole village folks to
Bali is cheaper than to do it in any 5 star hotel in India. Thats how things have change in this country.

Gurgaon - Cybercity of Haryana

Hi I am back!

Way too tired to post anything while i was in New Delhi..anyway I arrived at the Indra Ghandi International Airport on the 23 April 2007 at 2330pm ( Malaysia time) ...Indian time 2100hrs.

tired and really sleepy I queue at the immigration, waited for my bag and walk to the arrival hall, praying hard that my driver is there...as i walk out of the terminal, i was greeted by the Indian heat! its close to midnight and its so hot!! its like walking into an oven.

sooooo many pager boards with names on it...mana lah nama i ni? nama mat saleh je ni...at last ada la nama i. my driver is a small man with a big smile, his name was Vikneswaran. hmmm i have to say..he smell like India..i think you know what i mean. but he was so polite and small tak sampai hati pulak nak kurang ajar kan.

" Welcome to India, we will go to Gurgaon, very near..." that's what he said to me as I got into the car and enjoyed a bottled of mineral water. Gurgaon is only 32 km from Delhi, the national capital of India.

BUT...

I expected the heat and the dust.. because April is one of the driest month with temp going as high as 45 degrees ....but what i did not expect was the traffic jam. I have been in traffic jams daily on the way to work but in India there is an absolutely different definition to traffic jam! Signal lights and indicators are of no use here...the only way you drive in India is by honking every inch you move.....tiiit tooot piiit pooot peeep tooot iiit oooot ...macam nak pekak telinga. Yang pelik nye tak de lak accident. the driver kept pressing on the accelerator and then the brake and he repeats this until the car jerk its way out of the airport.

Vik gave me a short introduction of Gurgaon....the new cyber city of Haryana..like Cyberjaya but it looks more like the FTD ( free trade zone ) in pasir gudang or penang. office buildings and constructions every where....new apartments...mega shopping malls...lorries....excavators....every where you look.

Gurgaon district is situated in NCR of Delhi, the capital of India. The district derived its name from the name of Guru Dronacharya; the village was given as gurudakshina to him by his students; the Pandavas and hence it came to be known as Guru-gram, which in course of time got distorted to Gurgaon. Thus the district has been existence since the times of Mahabharata. The district is surrounded by Delhi & Rajasthan.

i also found out that New Delhi will be the next host for the Commonwealth Games 2010. hence...a lot of money has been spend to beautify the city, Gurgoan included. the metro line is expected to run from New Delhi to Gurgaon by 2008. in fact india is developing so fast that its expected to be at par with UK in 5 years!..biar betul! ...wawasan 2020 and malaysia boleh...we got to move our butt man! way too slow compared to India.

cant wait to see the Hilton Trident.

MH 190 KUL DEL

had such a hectic day today!

1. India High Commission - apply Visa

2. Holiday Tours - arrange for flight ticket

3. Pastry Department - arrange for the best selection of chocolates for the Consular Division at the High Commisssion for saving my life! It takes 24 hours to get a Visa but they were kind enough to accommodate me; God bless their kind heart! Thank you Mr Bhati.

4. Email all my clients and hand over all urgent accounts

5. Crash Course 101 with my Boss on Indian Travel market

6. follow up with our counterpart in India on the hotel bookings, courier, airport transfers.

7. change money to Rupee

8. forgot to buy birthday present for my girlfriend today!!!

9. break the news to my mom ( i can see it already " tolong kirim beli kain sari..buat baju kurung".... " bawak beg kosong tau!")

Briefing with Boss:
Boss: " I want you to wear baju kebaya ok"
Me: " Why boss?"
Boss: " satu kali dia orang tengok you pakai baju kebaya, terus close deal"

Me: stress nye, I dont want to know the expected biz deals i have to bring from this trip

The Lotus Temple New Delhi
Hinduism at its best
The New Delhi Metro

"I will be going for a biz trip to India on Monday?"

Thats what I asked my Boss at 2100hrs just now when he called me to his office.

" Yes, you will be leaving on Monday ...do you have a passport?"

Folks that is exactly what i mean by - you can never tell what the future might bring to your door step. So here I am stuck in the office finishing all my paper work so that I can do my handover.

next week's posting will be direct broadcast from New Delhi!

err gerun jugak ... i will only believe it when I step off the plane

to the Arians in my life

Its my sis birthday tomorrow... my Arian sis

last two weeks was also my best friend's birthday.great guy.they are both special to me and of course they are Arians. Arians are known to be adventurous and energetic, pioneering and courageous,enthusiastic and confident, dynamic and quick-witted. indeed they both have such valuable and strong traits.

i can never understand why they have to get into each others hair every time they meet... truly they behave like typical rams. the boys and i sometimes finds it strangely entertaining whenever they have a go at one another.

and yet ...my life would have been a complete bore without them.i would not have known the meaning of friendship, the value of a strong family bond, of what it takes to make it in life alone, what it would be like to pick up the pieces and move on, to take charge and lead, to be responsible and to have genuine concern over the ones they love, to not be diverted from your main purpose,to have immense energy and be aggressive and restless....despite their argumentative nature, headstrong, quick tempered, holds grudges too..( god help me when they read this!)...i love you guys!

i love the reflection in your heart

i love your spirit

i love your lemaks

Happy Birthday guys!

till we meet again

psyche just left last saturday . the whole family was there at the international departure hall. i was not suppose to be there bcoz of a dinner that i wanted to attend but my heart was not there.. i wanted so badly to sent her off.

so 1 hours 15 minutes into the event, i said thank you to the gracious host and i left and drove to KLIA to see my sis....hmmm i miss her already.

Happy Birthday Maleeya Aisha Malik Shamil Delane

my week end was with a special girl and her family, celebrating her birthday...Maleeya is two years old...time flies really... before you know it ....in ten years she will be dating and falling in love. God that can be scary.

kucing kurap basah kuyup - ku ku yup

story 3
i am sure that all of us at one point in time, had gone partying every chance that we have..me and psych most definitely did. we just graduated, in our first job and we were fresh from uk. budak baru balik study luar negeri ni selalu nye perasan semacam..perasan baguuuussss. so much to offer to the world la konon.

we listen to the coolest music, and have the coolest dance move. psych on the other hand not only has the coolest dance moves..she can also do the " butterfly". back then the butterfly is like the beyonce of all dance move. kalau terrer buat butterfly tu kira you are in a different league because you can dance like the blacks. bila dj main je lagu puff daddy...wow...psych will be the first one to dance. do you remember the song - more money more problems...hooo you should she the moves she has.

keluar la semua anak butterfly, emak butterfly, bapak butterfly, atuk nenek and onyang butterfly pun ada. of course i tried learning from her but i looked very terencat. to do the butterfly you have to move your whole body and your booty like a butterfly. its not just about moving , its must also look sexy.

but one thing that i cannot tahan is when psych dance until ku ku yup. i mean this girl has so much stamina that she can dance non stop in a crowded dance floor for hours until berpeluh peluh macam kucing kurap basah kuyup!! kalau you selalu pergi kedai mamak ke pasar malam ke you mesti pernah bertembung dengan kucing kucing yang kurus tapi sangat ligat. macam tu la psych menari.

but i have to give her some credit because ku ku yup macam mana pun she can still maintain the best dance moves. non of her dance partners cared actually, in fact she is the dance queen. till today i cannot find any malay girl who can do the butterfly like her.

PSYCHO

Story 2
i looked up the encyclopedia the other day and it says that "Psycho" is slang for a person who is either psychopathic or psychotic

believe it or not this was my best friend's nick name in school. mine was a variation between panjang...galah...zirafah...lamp post....giant....and every word that you can think of that emphasises on the fact that i am rather gangly.

anyway, psych got her name when we were in secondary school. it all started from her being challenged by a group of girls. well they were kinda popular and always gets the attention in school (by the way we were from a convent school and as you can imagine there is a misconception that girls from a convent school are suppose to be well mannered and all respectful in their behaviour and demeanour...well the operating word here is 'suppose to be'. but in reality convent girls puts the devil to shame when it comes to how mischievious we can be)

and the story goes... if i can recall correctly...the girls dared psych to eat paper just for the sake of being silly i suppose and i think this happened in the school canteen during our break. it was drizzling that day and we were probably bored to death and started goofing around for a bit. they gave her a paper cup.

" hah makan la kalau berani!"

so what does a 13 year old do when she gets challenged by her peers?

i mean being a teenager is tough then and will always be tough because you are growing up, you are confused , angry, raging hormones, periods, pimples, boys, puberty...like fuck i got hair growing on my punani and armpits..how is this sexy?!! or not changing physically fast enough like why am i as flat as the airport landing strip when all my girlfriends are blossoming into real women... !! i know you know what i mean

so it could only be too obvious that my best friend would accept the challenge and eat paper. but its not just eating paper that earned her that nick name...to add spice to the whole thing not only did she ate the whole paper cup she practically stood in the rain ,tho it was not that heavy, and open her mouth and stuck her tongue out, drank the rain water while eating the paper cup.

"eh psycho nye budak ni!"

Psycho may not sound very nice but thats how it all started and after a while we got use to it and psycho became psych.

strangely enough ...i personally believe that name really goes well with her personality during her school days. she was adventurous, slightly demented but smart and overall cool.

i miss those days..sigh

a trip to the hair salon

now that she is back ..i just have this itch in my fingers to share with all of you about my best friend and why she will always be my bestest friend forever....all these stories are of course written with her permission.

Story 1
as far as my memory of our friendship can go..psych as we use to call her ( thats another story)has always been a bit of a psycho about her beautiful mane...well i cant blame her actually coz i probably would have done the same. psyche does have really nice hair what with all that minyak kelapa her mom keep puting on her head since she was young.

we were around 14 at that time and the latest hairstyle then was the Sheila Majid do, Malaysia's Queen of Jazz ( you know that really short concave hairstyle or what everchamacalit), i cant remember the name of the hair salon but its somewhere in Damansarajaya.so here are 2 starry eyed teenagers wanting to have this latest most fashionable hairstyle like Sheila Majid la konon...

psych being the artistic one was sweet enough to draw me a picture of the hairstyle that i wanted so that i can show it to the hairstylist. i choose to look like the lead singer of spandau ballet...got jambul and slightly long at the back. yati on the other hand wants the Sheila Majid do..i mean who does not know the Sheila Majid do? mamak tukang gunting rambut pun tahu the Sheila Majid do. if you can still recall when you have this hairstyle you MUST wear it with big gaudy earings ( masa tu lawa la gantung subang sebesar mangga gate rumah...fesyeeeennn)

i had a guy to cut my hair while psych had a chinese girl. to cut the story short this chinese girl sudah tersalah potong lah pulak rambut dia....concave tah mana...jambul kat dahi pendek macam jambul burung ..jambul burung pun panjang lagi tau! to make it even worst she had actually told the girl not to cut her jambul too short... tapi kalau terlajak perahu boleh la berundur tapi kalau dah terpotong jambul...hah apa nak buat?

have you ever seen perempuan gila meroyan tak? i did that day.... i think the chinese girl has never been so scared shit of a 14 year old crazy teenager with a bad hair cut until that day. i swear there was steam coming out of psych's nose and ears..marah babe!muka merah padam maybe because she was trying so hard not to cry.

" i will burn this place down! i will burn this place down! i will burn this place down"... sampai mengigil la budak cina tu. kalau ada pisau or gunting berdekatan masa tu memang dah lama dah budak cina tu mati i rasa.

it took me and aini ( psych's sister) a very long time to calm her down. it continued until for about a week or so until psych and all of us got use to the new hairstyle. of course psych now has really beautiful long hair but i can bet you she will commit first degree murder if the same incident were to happen again.

my sis is back from London!

yahoo my sis is back!!!!!! for 2 weeks.

my best friend since we were still in sekolah rendah kebangsaan covent bukit nanas 1; is back home for a whole 2 weeks and its going to be great!

spent some time catching up last Sunday, tho she was still recovering from jet lag. wow great stuff! this is one person that i have always been proud to have met around 25-30 years ago. our friendship went thru so much and yet we can still talk till the cow comes home milk em and send them back out...and we still have stuff to talk about.

what do we talk about?
20 years ago it use to be boys and pimples. i don't get it ! whats the big deal with boys? such inferior beings.

15 years ago it use to be boys and how to complete our degree and still enjoy life..do the best dance moves ..listen to best dance music

10 years ago it use to be boys and how to make more money while we slave with our job and pay our study loans

5 years ago it use to be boys and who gets married first..aarrgh pressure pressure

2 years ago it use to be boys and career

24 hours ago....its still about boys but who needs them eh? life's too short babe ...lets make the best of what we have worked so hard for and some day these boys will eventually become men and we become insane enough to marry them.

well done with the brand spanking newly acquired bachelors pad. all from your own hard work and effort!

welcome home sis!