| |
A historic change of government in Malaysia
Post Date : 2019-07-11
Alor Setar, Kedah
May 9 - Aug. 1, 2018
When Malaysia voted on May 9, Barisan Nasional and its coalition is probably is the longest-ruling political alliance in the world but no more was it the case. It was a historic moment in Malaysia for the opposition to take over the government that had ruled Malaysia since its independence 61 years ago. While I watched the neck-to-neck result on Thailand's social media, it didn't seem perplexing to experience a delay on the Malaysian side of the news. Were they blocking the results when it seemed clear that the opposition had won? If it were, I wasn't shocked at all. A system of governance since Malaysia's independence in 1957, the regime had gotten greedy and fought hard to stay in power. They had, have and will continue to weaken the democratic institutions, introduce systematic racism, use fear tactics, gerrymander.
The plane I boarded, landed after the election just a day earlier. I was simply glad that there was no bloodshed and a peaceful transition of power had taken place. This was partly due to the wisdom of the 93-year Tun Dr. Mahathir who was once the leader of the opposition, now officially world's oldest elected official. He declared Friday (May 11) as a public holiday, freezing any possible transactions to move money out of the country by the then-corrupt government Afterall, 1MDB, the world's biggest financial scandal which accused Najib Razak, the now-deposed Prime Minister of Malaysia of receiving $681m in cash -- a claim which he had systematically denied. The US Justice Department claimed that the money was used to purchase luxury apartments in Manhattan, mansions in Los Angeles, paintings by Monet, a corporate jet, and even financed a major Hollywood movie.
While these were important development as all my family members are still Malaysia, the main purpose of the trip was to visit my aging mother. At 86, she now walks with a walker due to a mild stroke in 2015. When the immigration gate opened, it was such a delight to see her and dad anxiously awaiting for me. Once home, my sister-in-law's younger sister and her husband were also there as they were also anxiously awaiting for the Coach merchandise I had gotten from the Blue Grass outlet in Simpsonville, Kentucky. The money was used to help pay for our lawyer's fees who was hired to facilitate the sale of one of my websites to a German company which started an arbitration war with us in 2008. The case went all the way to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) based in Switzerland. Luckily, their case was weak and the lost but have since returned to offer to buy the site. Somehow, I doubt their sincerity because the terms kept shifting after we finalized it with them. More about the 2008 WIPO case here: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2009/d2009-0210.html
Not only did I get to celebrate her birthday with her during this trip, I also managed to squeeze in my 2nd niece's birthday. In addition to birthdays, Mother's Day also fell in the month of May which I gladly celebrated with mom and the rest of the family as well. On the second day of my arrival, I couldn't forget it as I took a picture of my niece in the garden, bravely holding the flag of the coalition which now forms the new government. Some immediate changes enacted by the new government include the banishing of the highly unpopular GST (goods and service tax). At seven years old, the change of government may not mean much to her, but if this secular and more progressive coalition could hold together to embrace another victory in the next election, the country could finally start to mend itself after decades of mismanagement and corruption at every possible level.
In imparting a sense of responsibility to the kids, we adopted a stray puppy and the first one, named Vege (veggie) by the youngest niece but unfortunately, he contracted parvo virus and died. Our second attempt was another stray puppy named Happy and this little guy, caught distemper, and broke little Zi Xin's heart for the second time. It left a painful reminder in me about the preciousness of honoring the living which explained why when I contacted a former classmate from secondary school (US 8th grade) named Lim Chong Hooi, whom I had learned about surviving cancer. He now lives in Butterworth in Penang and although it was a short visit where we had lunch and tea, I cherished every minute of it, and so did he.
The 'official' trip of Singapore
Post Date : 2019-07-11
Singapore
May 14 - May 23, 2018
Barely five days since the plane touched down in Malaysia on May 9, I was on a plane again, this time, to Singapore. I had received an email from the management office about water leakage problem at my condo in Singapore. When I left Singapore for the States, three year earlier, I had rented the condo out to supplant the exorbitant mortgage. I would have sold it but a lucrative previous en bloc attempt to sell the building to potential developers for redevelopment had fallen through, leaving many of us with no choice but to persevere for future possibilities. The drainage had affected the neighbor downstairs who over time had put up with many of my quirky renters from Chinese mainlanders who illegally put up partitions in the living room to Indian smokers who accidentally flung cigarette butts into her apartment right downstairs from my unit above. Ms. Ng was a kind lady and as it turned out, was a realtor too who was able to find a renter for me. My accommodation for the 9 days was spent at Lena's house. She was someone who I befriended after her short stint as a PR personnel at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information when I used to teach there. While that was nice, I was highly irritated by the former rental agent, Pauline Chong, who promised to take good care of the condo but the mail inside the box was so full that hardly any new mail could be slotted into it and in addition, her tactic of finding laborers who pretty much had damaged all the equipment I provided, further irritated me. I had no choice but to evict these renters...
A ritual that I followed closely when I visited Singapore was to visit my former students who graduated from the BFA visual communication program I had helped to start at the Art, Design, and Media School at Nanyang Technological University back in December of 2004. We didn't get the first batch of student until 2009. Hong Yang and his wife, whom he met from my second batch of Visual Communication students have always been welcoming and would gladly arrange for other former classmates to have dinner with me. Jeff Koh, another former student, also from the Visual Communication program, was originally from the first batch. He struck me as a very hard working student who used to travel an hour on a daily basis and was always one of the first few to arrive during class hours. It was a delight to see them growing as a person, maturing into adulthood. Jeff is now a parent. Lastly, as part of the mission to be accomplished while in Singapore: I stocked up on dried food supplies which could come in handy when I am back in the states. Part of the stocks will be allocated to my family in Malaysia too. It seems the girls (my nieces) are, especially the eldest, are quite fond of the Singapore Teochew-styled bah kut teh. This 'official' trip, which I used to justify the needs to spend extra money to divert me from my original plan to spend more time with my family in Malaysia, was also about renewing the two dongles from the banks that I have kept the accounts active in Singapore. I was getting worried as one of them had a low battery indication on every time I turned it on. I needed the dongle to work because I checked rental money deposited into my account at the beginning of every month. I decided to cancel my Singapore Permanent Residency and because of that, some amount of money would be deposited into my bank account--something that would come in handy indeed. The permanent residency, PR, in short, was a joke because it wasn't tied to the person, but a full-time job that is associated with the person. It was no longer active so why should I let the government of Singapore hold on to my social security cash?
Reflecting back on my relocation back to the States, there are a few pros and cons. For one, I surely never appreciated the hot, humid, and rainy seasons. As the country is in the tropics, it is always hot and humid but luckily, there are plenty of shaded walkways which helps especially when I was caught without an umbrella, no matter how beautiful the weather could be. Singapore's broad road network and transportation system are extensive and there is no need to own a vehicle which can cost an exorbitant amount of money due to the COE (certificate of entitlement). Lastly, it is a very safe country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world, with a zero tolerance policy when drugs are concerned.
Was it Myanmar, Burma, Yangon or Rangoon
Post Date : 2019-07-12
Yangon, Myanmar
May 18 - 20, 2018
Years back, I had decided that I should at least visit two new countries or territories each year and Myanmar was on the list. Wait... was it Myanmar, Burma, Yangon or Rangoon? It seemed that Burma was a name enforced by the British and they reverted back to Myanmar, as the official spelling for their country. I wanted to see first-hand what the city was like before some older building were torn down. My personalized tour guide (from Singapore) Lena, an ex-colleague from Singapore, had offered to be my personal tour guide to Yangon, so I took her up on her offer. It wasn't a bad idea since she had been there before and this could save me a lot of headache in researching for places to visit. We left on the wee hours of Friday, May 18, 18 (at 3 AM to be exact) and our first visit, after we had settled down, was at the Bogyoke Aung San Market (formerly Scott's Market) where we used our public find which Lena suggested to buy two wooden shoe horns for 3500 Kyat for two which translated into S$3.50 for one and it was made out of natural wood. Almost every ladies of all ages wear longyis (pronounced lon-gee) which were made out of very colorful fabrics often worn with a matching close fitted top. They also wear 'thanaka,' a type of powder ground from a tree which can be a good protection from the sun. Men wore sarongs with dress shirts, casual shirts or T-shirts.Flip-flops weren't cut out for walking as the road surfaces can be uneven. However, taking the local train was an unforgetable experience. It was Lena's new experience too and we noticed that people were using the train not just to transport themselves, but goods, often carried by men in big heavy sacks, and people were also selling all kinds of foods and merchandise up and down the aisle of the train. It was something unique that can only be seen in places that hasn't been gentrified yet.
Souvenir collecting was also a habit that I had amassed from my global travel and at the air-conditioned mall across called Junction City, I found a wooden souvenir of a baby in a traditional hair-do with moveable limbs for 9500 Kyat. We also checked out the 999 Shan Cuisine on 34th street, which was one of the recommended places by TripAdvisor. The noodle was ok. A bit too sticky for me. It cost 2500 Kyat to visit the Schwedagon pagoda where the entrance fee for international visitors cost 10,000 Kyat. Lena asked me when my birthday falls on this year to coincide with the day to pray to the Buddha where they had set up days in the week. Under her insistence, I decided to give the Buddha a bath although I told her that I'm now an atheist. On the next day, the big event of the day was the betrothal of Megan Markel to prince harry of England which we could watch on YouTube live. We tried to catch some of it but I was more interested in the events that unfold in Malaysia's new government. Usually, a lone travel, it was always hard to travel with anyone, as it was in this case as I decided that it was a bad idea in the first place. I would not travel with her again because the motherly lording side of her just like her sister was beginning to show. I hated that she has the needs to argue and nick pick on me so I warned her about opening that floodgate. She had also been using me as a punching bag to dump all the negativity about her workplace colleagues and I began to feel like Dr. Phil, discharging free advice... Would I be back to Myanmar, possibly not. However, it is a country and a city checked off my travel list.
4th of July in New Zealand
Post Date : 2019-07-15
Auckland, New Zealand
Jul. 2 - 7, 2018
Being able to kill two birds with one stone has at least two benefits which in this case is an opportunity to visit a brand new country for the first time on a personal capacity and on a professional one: to present a paper. As time goes by, the need to visit my aging parents on a yearly basis has become more prevalent so I cooked up a method: visit them, and try to find a conference at a nearby location. My opportunity arrived in February when a former colleague: Dr. Sean Chaidaroon, a Senior Lecturer who now teaches at University of Technology Sydney told me about the opportunity to present at the ANZCA (Australia New Zealand Communication Association). We started planning on the dates as he would be there as well. It had been a while since we saw each other, especially after he left our former university in Singapore for a teaching position in London, UK before moving to Australia for his current job. I booked my hotel at Ibis budget Auckland Central, thanks to Sean who proposed an alternative site to book for accommodations. Next was the plan to find a flight to Auckland that would be close to the time of Sean's arrival from Australia so that we could both share a taxi. After the taxi arrived at our hotel, to my surprise, he offered to pay the exorbitant NZ$87. 620 since his department would be picking up the bill. I remembered the days back in Singapore that he had always been a generous friend.
I celebrated America's birthday in a new country, Auckland, New Zealand. We made our way to the ANZCA 2018 conference held at the University of Auckland's downtown Science center. After obtaining our registration, we attended the keynote speaker which seem to push more of the Beijing agenda since he came from the University in Beijing. Another former colleague, Angela Mak, who now teaches in Hong Kong, also joined us at the conference on the day after the 4th of July. When we were colleagues, her daughter was a toddler and she is now a 10-year-old. Besides the conference, we also managed to shop around for a bit. Some of the shopped items included manuka honey, facial cream, souvenirs. I also bought both nieces three pens that could be joined together which would make a good present. As for my own gifts, I added home-related stuff like a set of plastic inserts that would eliminate wobbly furniture and a black shower curtain for my house in the States. I couldn't pass up walking into a 'recycle boutique' where I found a dark blue man's jacket for only $4.50. Even the cashier couldn't believe it and asked me where I found it. All that shopping meant a lot of walking and I recorded that on July 6, I had walked 18,251 steps. When it came time to present on the 5th of July, I discovered that the files I had in the thumb drive wasn't there which caused me to run like hell back to the hotel to retrieve it. I arrived within 7 minutes, a record time. The organizer had moved me to the back making me the last person to present. It went well especially when I finish on the dot within 15 minutes. I also distributed about six which is a set of three different prospectuses. All went well, nonetheless.
The flight from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, to Penang finally landed after some delays at 1230 noon on July 8th and my brother picked me up with mom at the Penang airport waiting for me. I treated everyone to Dragon-I restaurant where our Chinese meal of half a roasted duck, mapo tofu, baby cabbage, and long bean cost me RM160 (US$40). After our meal, we pushed mom with the three of us taking turns. We also started noticing that mom started to tilt her body more to her left side and when the maid tried to get her to sit correctly, she was resistant and started to say hurtful things to the maid that after she died, the maid could go back to Indonesia, and I could go back to States. It was difficult to blame her for old age, osteoporosis, and a mild stroke had robbed her of her mobility while dad still drives his own car and that philanderer also has a girlfriend on the side...
A purely pleasure-driven trip
Post Date : 2019-07-15
Bangkok, Thailand
Jul. 20 - Jul. 24, 2018
After so many official businesses, the trip to Bangkok, Thailand was purely for pleasure. Before leaving for Bangkok, I visited my friend from secondary school at the Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid. His house in Butterworth was symptomatic of an empty bird nest, with him, his wife, and his Pekingese dog, Max. It was a short visit but a memorable one because we hadn't seen each since 1985. The fact that he was fighting to keep his innocuous cancer at bay made it much more significant that I squeezed in this little time to meet him before my brother drove me off to the airport in Penang to catch a flight at 2:30 PM. Arriving on a Friday night allowed me to ease into local time where I tried out local street food before the big day on Saturday to shop till I drop at the weekend Chatuchak market.
The Siam Discovery has become very upscale in its presentation. Although there were some nice stuff, they were so overpriced. At the Kinokuniya bookstore inside the paragon mall, I finally found three books as present for ZY at the cost of 876B. Luckily I'm able to charge it to my credit card. Upon arrival at the Silom station, before I could even exit the station, 200 Baht went to pay for six pen with the top in the shapes of unicorns for ZX. I knew that she had bought a unicorn phone case and hopefully these would make her happy. What made my feet happy was a new pair of sandals from the Korean brand called Oofos for the amount of 1611 Baht (US$53) at 8:30 pm. It was a hefty price to pay but I've had it with painful legs and I still have other shopping grounds to cover.
With the high cost of glasses in the States, Thailand was a great alternative for my prescription glasses. At a store called Falcon Optic, I charged 2600 Baht (US$84) for all four prescriptions. That literally translated into only US$21 for the prescription. Seeing the picture of the former deceased king near MBK saddened me. I had practically grew up seeing his profile on Thai currency. Because Chong Hooi added me to the WhatsApp group, as I shopped, I found myself responding to questions from former classmates of how I ended up in the States. I also received images from my brother about the stray puppy we were trying to adopt but we seemed to be fighting a losing battle. We didn't want to give up but at the end, it was inevitable.
My annual pilgrimage
Post Date : 2019-07-19
Alor Setar, Kedah, Malaysia
May 8 - Jul. 9, 2019
Epic was the word that my buddy would use to describe my trip back to visit my family, and one person in particular is my mother. It has become an annual pilgrimage as my way of coping with her aging self. Some 22 hours of flight in total with transit in three different cities, enduring delays (if any) and jetlag. My circadian rhythm gets adjusted every 10 months. Upon my arrival on the 8th of May, I was preparing to get some shuteye when there was a panic knock on the door and it was my sister-in-law shouting that mom had fallen. When I got to the living room, she was lying on the floor with droplets of blood. She had hit her head on the sink and required stitches. We rushed her to a local private hospital (Putra Medical Center), not worrying about the cost and tears were streaming down my eyes when I heard her moaning when they stitched her without any painkillers. Our new Indonesian maid was with her and in fact, what happened after we all went upstairs was that the maid had walked away to turn off the lights leaving mom on a walker. Complaining of leg pain on the right, we didn�t foresee that she wouldn't be able to stand upright and that was when she lost her balance and fell. The MRI showed that she had a minor haemorrhage on the right and she was hospitalized. Due to the intake of anti-coagulant medication, there was a much bigger haemorrhage on the left and it was something we notice when she faded in and out of consciousness after she was discharged. This time, we decided to take her to the general hospital. To make a long story short, I had been spending many visitation hours and by the time we were ready to take her home, the bill we were responsible for was only RM123 (US$30), reduced from over RM4000 (US$1,000). It was a scary moment for us. During one of the visits, my brother and I both cried while we held her tight in our arms and the feeling of losing her was too much to bear.
A more positive moment from the trip was when my brother was finally able to move to the house that he had purchased four years ago. A string of thieving activities from manhole cover to electrical wires being stolen by drug addicts and shoddily but foundation which required the house to be retrofitted before it was safe for habitation were some of the reasons for the delay. I donated some cash to make the move possible and he used the money to purchase six air-conditioning units. The whole country is a semi-dessert in terms of the temperature and those are necessary things to have in a house. Prior to my trip, he had been making some progress in tiling the kitchen, bathroom, and pretty much the entire floor, new windows with aluminium frames, and a stainless steel backyard gate, which further facilitated the move.
We both felt that the house would be a good move for everyone for two reasons: to facilitate mom�s health condition as it was free from differing floor levels, a levelled bathroom so that her wheelchair could ingress and egress without any difficulties. Another reason was a more superstitious one: to help improve mom's health and to help with brother's business. However, my brother didn�t believe in any of those superstition so the ceremony to move in was simplified to just installing two red lanterns. My sister-in-law made sure that the house was stocked with rice, sugar, salt, and other necessities before we could move in as a sign of auspiciousness. On the big day of the official move after a good day was picked, she rolled some oranges on the floor before we officially walked through the front door on June 28th. Because of my trip to Greece, my brother moved in much earlier alone because he was worried that some unwarranted activities may take place if the house was left vacant. If I hadn't pushed for the move, it would probably drag on for who knows how long. I joined them on various trips to purchase items like the fridge, stove, curtains, lanterns, and other ceremonially necessary items such as red lanterns and it could have been more. We ordered a custom made table which was 102" in length and we also installed a 84" fan in the living room. At the Ikea store in Butterworth, we spent hundreds of Ringgit on DIY curtain rails. I personally helped to lengthen all the premade curtains purchased at Kaison, a local home decoration store at the Alor Setar Mall. The single-storied semi-detached house is much smaller in comparison to the old residence which made it that much easier to clean and maintain. I love its tall ceiling and the brightness afforded by the clearstory. The plan was to rent it out to secure some income but we ran into trouble�not expecting mom not wanting to live in the new house because in her heart, she felt that the new old didn�t belong to her and she would have to put up with her daughter-in-law. Sigh!
My friend, Lim Sow Seik and her Dutch husband were in Penang for her late elder sister's funeral and we had arranged to meet in Penang right after my plan touched down from Athens. It wasn't part of the plan and I had to give up the opportunity to join my brother's friend who wanted to treat me for some durians but Sow Seik and her husband decided in the last minute to follow me back to my hometown where I showed them the new house as well as other touristy venues such as the Alor Setar communication tower, the State Mosque, State Museum, Chinatown where we had dinner. The last stop was at the new train station where they hopped on the commuter train to go home. It was a short and productive trip for them and in general, I was glad that my brother finally moved into his dream house and mom was recovering from her incident, albeit she now has a new problem� being hard at breathing. When I left on July 4, which coincidentally was America's 243rd birthday, I yearn to see her in 10 months for my next visit.
Souvlakis, chicken pita, and gyros
Post Date : 2019-07-19
Athens, Greece
June 15 - 18 and June 22 - 23, 2019
The flight for Athens required flying to multiple cities, starting with Penang, Malaysia, then Singapore for a direct flight to Athens. Patras where I was scheduled to present a research paper on the 19th of June is another 2.5 hours away by road. Things got complicated upon landing at Changi, Singapore. I was told to check directly with Scoot airlines instead of Singapore Airlines, where I had purchased my ticket online from the latter. I was told that they couldn't find my reservation and as a result, unable to issue any boarding passes. I kept pointing to the confirmation number and the apathetic Indian lady waited for me to search high and low before telling me the solution: to clear the Singapore customs so that I could go upstairs to the departure hall to check with their staff. Technically, I visited Singapore for about 15 minutes. The found the culprit--the salutation of 'Prof' which I had entered online when I booked. I told them that it was an option in the website and the guy jokingly remarked that they were not as detailed as Singapore airlines. This seemed like an internal issue that should have been worked out. The horror hadn't finished as I found that there were no entertainment screens equipped for everyone in the economy section. I wasn't even sure if there was a business section. I must have done something right when I booked the fare because they asked the type of food and drinks I'd like to have. For the rest, there was an option to purchase. They even gave me a blanket which was shrink-wrapped. This would definitely be a memorable trip!
The 12-hour trip arrived on June 15 and I figured, with three days to recuperate and adjust to local time, I also had the luxury to discover the city of Athens with the world-famous Acropolis, which is all the city has to offer in terms of attractions. I had a great time as this was my first visit and a great time buying souvenirs, eating souvlakis, chicken pita, gyros. With an assortment of monuments and ruins built between 510 and 400 B.C., including the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion, my wish to finally see what was deemed as the seminal point of western civilization was realized. The Parthenon is under construction, but the view from up there was amazing and the Acropolis Museum is a modern archaeological museum that gives its visitors a complete story of life on the Athenian acropolis and its surroundings. From history, we learned that the Christians and Muslims conquered Greece and the Turks used it for target practice; and the British stole a lot of the sculptures which are now stored in the British Museum, which I had seen when I visited London in 2008. The Acropolis Museum houses a restaurant on the second floor, with panoramic views of the Acropolis and a public terrace commanding a breath-taking view of the historic hills of Athens. Admittedly, I was attracted to the fancy uniform that the guards wore at the parliament and I learned that the 'skirt' that they wear has 400 pleats, to remind them of each year of the Turk occupation of Greece. Now, that's neat. A memorable incident was when I caught what looked like a wrongly used Chinese character in the archeological museum where they had tried to define a section of books about Greece in Chinese. I told them that they had wrongly translated it to mean "China's." I also visited what looked like a Chinatown area and the neighborhood looked rough. More about Chinatown here: https://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/03/18/athens-chinatown-meet-the-chinese-community-of-greece-full-documentary/
Unfortunately, this history city was also known for pick-pockets. Luckily, I had anticipated for that to happen and the trick was not to leave a lot of cash in the wallet as well as other important documents. Unfortunately, because both of my credit cards were in there, it was a rude awakening on the 17th of June when I discovered that upon leaving the metro station of Omnia. I had just purchased a souvenir of the Acropolis and the plan was to exit at the Syntagma station for some last minute shopping but I had to change my plan. Immediately, I contacted both credit card companies. Poor internet connection made my attempts to contact the banks via Skype a moot exercise so I had no choice but to turn on my international phone plan. This event happened on the day before I left for Patras so an attempt was made to contact my brother so that he could use western union to wire some money to me. I also had to cancel my car reservation in Athens and to switch to taking a bus instead. I was thankful for a longtime friend that I befriended while presenting in Cyprus in 2010, Thanasis who now lives in Rhodes, gave me the suggestion which ended up saving me a lot of money and hassle, especially, having to deal with toll, traffic jams, local driving habits, etc. There were still nice and decent people as I discovered when the car driver returned to the bus station to look for me as I had given him 5 Euros more for the fare. Bless his heart (and his action)!
More souvlakis, chicken pita, and gyros
Post Date : 2019-07-19
Patras, Greece
June 18 - 22, 2019
The opportunity to present at a 3-year once conference called the International Conference of Typography and Visual Communication (ICTVC) at Patras, Greece from June 19-21, was something of a chance. When I initially saw the opportunity before leaving for the summer to Malaysia, they seemed to have lined up the speakers. Since I hadn't been active in my research activities since the last presentation at Auckland, New Zealand, I thought that I'd take a chance and wrote the organizer, Dr. Klimis Mastoridis, a professor at the University of Nicosia whom I met back in 2010, when I first presented at the conference when it was held in Nicosia, Cyprus. To my surprise, he replied and within two days, he had added my name and as a presenter, I need not pay any registration fees. Sweet!
In anticipating the opportunity, I had packed some materials with me but I soon realized that I didn't have enough images but I was able to salvage them from the paper that I had written a short while back. A rejected journal article was repackaged into a research presentation. Sweet (again!). With ample time prior to the trip, I was able to whip my PowerPoint into shape. My presentation took place at the University of Patras�s Conference and Cultural Center. It helped that I was the first to present on the first day of the conference on the 19th, right after their keynote speaker. I was able to command some captive audience.
It was an opportunity to network not just for me but also an opportunistic doctoral student who was interested in my research method. Some attendees lamented that this time, the participation was lower probably because of the location. Patras is not exactly accessible by the means of an international airport. Patras is 211 kilometres (131 miles) west-northwest of Athens and there were two ways to get there: rent a car or take a bus. I opted for the latter after I was being pickpocketed in Athens. Galaxy Hotel where I stayed was a modern building within steps from the scenic port. There was a ship from Green Peace that was docked at one of the ports and it was unfortunate that I had to give it a miss due to the conference. After the conference ended on the 21st, I spent the remaining time looking for a souvenir but instead, I resided to just relaxing and taking pictures. The tradition called for me to mail a postcard from the city and since I couldn't find any, I decided that some gifts for my two nieces would definitely put a smile on their faces. Prior to the trip, we had been busily preparing my brother's new house to move in and the glow in the dark stars and miniaturized universe were perfect. I took the bus, joined by a few other attendees from the conference on June 22 and arrived in Athens on the same day, some 2.5 hours later. After checking into my one-star hotel where its elevator is only built for luggage, I was able to do some last minute shopping at Athens before flying off the next day. It was another 12 hours of entertainment-less environment. I managed to sketch and idea for a few hours before the tiredness and insomnia set in.
|
|
YEOH'S JOURNAL
|
