Home Sweet Home

Guys and girls,

I am going Home in two weeks time and want to let you know my schedule and the places where I will be. I hope that I can meet you while I am back home and we can catch up. As you can see it is quite busy and tight, covering all corners of the country, so if I can’t visit you, then this is the explanation and not that I have forgotten you.

7th of September:
- Quick tour in Amsterdam in the morning (Meeting the Undutchables)
- 6pm Landing at Henri Coanda Airport in Bucharest
- After 8 pm Dinner and drinks in Bucharest (place TBA)
8th of September:
- Travel to Iasi and wedding (not mine, but of my good friends)
9th of September
- Sleep-in and travel home
10th -11th of September
- Home in Szekelykeresztur (Cristuru Secuiesc)
12th of September
- Travel to Bozod and Marosvasarhely (Targu Mures)
13th of September
- Travel to Szekelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc)
14th of September
- Travel to Nagyvarad and Party there with friends (Sebi is the OCP) (Oradea)
15th of September
- Quick shopping in Hungary and then travel back home
16th of September
- Baptism of my brother’s kid at Szekelyudvarhely
17th of September
- Travel to Bucharest and take off at 17:40

Can’t wait to see you all :):):)

Exploring Cambodia

One of the places in Asia I heard so much about but I never managed to visit until now was Cambodia. So I was very excited to be on the plane on my way to Siem Reap, so excited that I got my first beer at 6:30 am on the plane just to celebrate that this plan of visiting the place is becoming a reality:):):).
Right after I landed, met my friends from Romania and had breakfast, we went to see the famous temples in the Angkor complex. Some of them have a 1000+ years and I have to tell you, it is an amazing feeling to walk among them.
I have a way of realizing if something or somebody is very unique and appealing to me. And that’s by making pictures. I think that great things are very very hard to capture on a picture and if I take few hundred pictures and feel that still did not capture the essence of it, then that’s an indication of greatness for me. It means that besides beauty, those feelings that I feel there are not capturable / expressible. I took few hundred pictures at Angkor but I feel that I still did not capture that thousand year that these temples represent and lived through.
I guess not much to write about Angkor, you have to see it and feel it. Hope that the few pictures here can give you a glimpse of it.
I think Cambodia is an amazing place not just for its thousand year temples but for its people as well. I am always overwhelmed by meeting the nicest people in places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines. I am back for two weeks but I still remember the faces of the people I met, the kindness and the smiles. I always feel that they know something about life that I don’t know, some sort of secret that makes them happy and good people. In the past two weeks I am thinking quite often about our tuc – tuc driver, Mr. Lim. He is one of the most genuine and humble people I have met and he seems to know that special thing about life and happiness. Somehow these people have the same smile and look in their eyes as my grandfather had, and he is among those people that I think knew something very essential about life.

When I go to these places I always feel that I need to move there and stay among them for a long time to understand and learn that secret of life. Or maybe it is within us, and we just need to let it come to surface by being good people generally.

One more thing that is quite stunning, you don’t really see old people in Cambodia due to the genocide, and you see lots of disabled people because of landmines remained from the war and you see so many kids. And those kids are so so cute. It really makes you fell like you want to become a father and have few of those kids. I stop here before this idea gets rooted in my mind, hehehe. It is amazing that they speak some really good English and they are extremely smart in the way they communicate and they reply to you. Fascinating. Again, I feel that it is something you need to experience and it is really hard to describe. And guys, the Cambodian women are so beautiful and sensual. Worth doing the trip just to understand what beautiful women means.
I would not be a true Asian if I would not comment on two things: food and spa. Some of my friends did not really like the food there but I think it is amazing. A must try is the Amok fish, but I ate some stewed veggie as well made by the hostel owner for the special Cambodian dinner and it was amazing and have to recommend it. At least o could it my friend’s portion as well, hehehe. I like the food more in Cambodia, Vietnam Thailand, Indonesia then the Chinese food. It is just fits better my tastes. And after walking so much around the temples we went for a massage as well. For 8 USD I got an hour of pure pampering and oil massage. So good. Wish I could have that every day here in Singapore for that price :):):).

It was also good to catch up with friends in Cambodia and have some good wine in the evening with them. It is interesting to meet people from Romania in a place like Cambodia.

Unfortunately could not stay too much in Cambodia because I had to come back to work, but it definitely got into the places I want to see and explore again. Who is joining me?

Getting Emotional...

One of the things that is pretty strong in our culture is that parents would sacrifice their "lives" to make sure that their kids get the best in life and get as far as possible. In return the children would take care of the parents when they get old and would ensure that they have a careless retirement.

Coming from a relatively poor family, my parents made lots and lots of sacrifices for us to have proper education and especially that I can finish my university studies. But not only my parents but my grandparents and the whole family. My parents and we kids were working all day long to get a proper life and proper education. It was very tough for them and for us kids as well. I know that my mother has so many health issues now mainly because of the heavy work she needed to do but she was not used to (like farming).

After getting on my own feet (starting to earn money), it was pretty much a strong decision from my side that I will need to give back to my parents as much as possible and make sure that I do lots of things to make their lives easier at least now.

The first objective for me was to make sure that they have a comfortable house and that they don’t lack anything from the house. My and my brother chipped in and helped them to get all these done.

Another big issue was always in our family the lack of a good car. I remember that since we were very young, we had the shittiest cars or no cars at all. Because my parents never had enough money, they always made lots of compromises and bought a cheap and shitty car that was not functioning well most of the times. Though their quality improved over the time, there was always a compromise on choosing the car and there always were some inconveniences.

I am really proud to say that now we achieved the second objective as my parents bought a new car which will help my father in doing his work and also they can use it to go and visit my grandmother and take care of her. And hopefully they will also use it to go on holidays sometimes. Me and my brother managed to help them financially (this time I am the main financer) and it feels good that I can do and afford this. My parents are very very happy about it and I saw my father as happy as a small kid when he gets his desired Christmas present. As the commercial would say in this case: “Parent’s happiness: priceless”

There is one more thing on my list, which is a dream holiday for them. I know that since the communism fall till recent years when we managed to be on our own (roughly 15 years) they did not have any holiday or any trip, except to go to my grandparent’s place to visit them on weekend or to visit my sister from time to time for a couple of days. Therefore I want to get them a month of travel and holiday around the world. When they were young they travelled a lot inside the country, they were camping and climbing mountains. Now they do smaller trips here and there in the weekends. But I want them to travel in few countries and see the world. Their effort made it possible to see so many countries and want to share this wonder with them.

Maybe is a coincidence, maybe not, but in the same day on which my parents bought the car, I was in a situation where I remembered one decision I made last year about whether I go down this road of staying in Singapore (and making some money that would enable me to help my parents as well) or whether I go and pursue a path that would not necessarily allow that but would be also good for me as an individual.

It was one of those decisions when you know that whatever you have decided, you make a compromise and will irrevocably change your life. And with all decisions like this you always think after that whether you took the right decisions, whether how would my life be now if I would have opted the other way around. Whether it was worth making that sacrifice. Don't have the answer to that question, but at least is a good feeling that the objectives for which I took that decision have been already partially fullfilled.

Weekend Theatre Marathon

In the weekend I was among the lucky ones who managed to catch two fantastic theatre plays at Esplanade. The Royal Shakespeare Company came to Singapore with two super cool productions: Kind Lear by the good old Shakespeare and Seagull by Chekhov and we were inspired enough to buy tickets months in advance to catch it.

As expected, the whole show was solid and outstanding. You come out from a show like this saying wow, these guys really know theatre. Obviously it was the best show I have seen in Esplanade in the past two years I was here in Singapore. Here are some reasons why I thought it was outstanding:

- Very natural and world class acting, very nice pronunciation and accent
- Great set, costumes and good effects
- The whole show was flowing naturally like a river and it felt very very real. Even the set changes were very well done, smooth and innovative.
- The actors truly lived the characters and the expressions and feelings they have expressed were very real.
- It felt like not being in the theatre but watching the events live when they happened in those old times, or felt like being in the room with the people when the action happened (being in the first row for the second show helped as well )
- Simple yet complex shows
- Just felt so good seeing these two shows. After the show I left with a strange feeling that I could not explain, but which just moved something inside me that made me feel in a way that I can’t explain though.

The only downside of it was that the King Lear was a bit tough to understand in terms of old English language and accent. But I guess that’s a good reason to watch it again next time and catch all the dialogues that I have missed this time.

It was very refreshing to see these shows and realised that I really miss going to good theatre. I used to go quite often while I was a student, but since then haven’t seen much. Of course Singapore might not be the place for the kind of performances I appreciate.

Pleasant Surprise

I haven’t been travelling for a while because I screwed my knee and could not do my dive trip. So I am really looking forward to go to Cambodia in the first week of august, I need to get out from Singapore. Of course any trip comes with some pain for getting the visa. But not for Cambodia!!!

I was firstly shocked when I found out that you can apply for the visa online, upload your picture there and pay with credit card. My shock was even bigger when I got my visa approval in 1 hour and 8 minutes from the time I have submitted. I just print the e-visa out and I show up at the border in Cambodia. It’s amazing, makes life so simple. Of course the simplest would be if no visa would be required!!! All the countries having a visa policy, but want to make good money from tourism should follow this example!!! Either to cancel visas (like Malaysia, Singapore) or have an easy system which does not require one page of your passport each time you enter the country.

Really looking forward to my trip. A poor country which has e-visa can be nothing else but great :):):)

Weekend Movie Marathon

A very painful knee ligament sprain put me down for two weeks or so and need to rest my knee, stay at home and keep my knee under ice while eating some wicked medicine that makes me sleepy. Had to cancel my dive trip and felt like doing nothing in the weekend because the pain made me very inpatient, so I was not in the mood to read or work or do anything. “What to do, What to do?” was my question (in Singlish) so I decided to rent lots of movies. And that was my whole weekend, watching DVDs, one after the other. Don’t ask me the names of all movies that I have seen, but most of them are comedies and made the weekend to pass very fast luckily.

I watched some serious movies as well, mostly the ones I missed watching in the cinema and I have to highlight 3 that I have really liked: The Last King of Scotland, Letters from Iwo Jima and A Good Year. I know the last one is not really matching the first too, but I got into romantic mood, I dream of having a castle like that and a vineyard, so it had kind of everything I desire :):):)

I realized that there are so many good movies that are passing by and don’t have time to watch them, so I should go more often to cinema or get some movie watching evenings sometimes. It turned out to be a good weekend at the end of the day even though it was not diving. Now I am back to my reading while staying at home. So I end this post and go back to my exciting book :):):)

Wicked Dive Trip

Last weekend I did a wicked dive trip to Tioman Island in Malaysia. I haven’t been there for a while, so I just couldn’t wait longer and went there with a bunch of crazy guys from the company.

Nice rainbow in the morning while we were going for our first dive:

We left Friday evening and it was very nice to stay on the top deck of the boat and look at the stars, just listen how the boat hits the calm sea and the waves. It was very relaxing.

Asian Style picture underwater:

Saturday we had 3 dives and Sunday we had 2 dives. As usual, all dives are cool and lots of nice corals and fish to see. Did not manage to see shark this time, but met a chilling turtle under a rock and played with some Nemo fish, visited some ship wrecks and enjoyed the millions of wonders of the oceans and coral reefs. It is a different universe and happy to be able to explore.

I like this funky picture. I was diving at aroun 25-30 m at a shipwreck when this fish was swimming around and looking at me and me looking at it for a while. So wicked:)

Chilling on the boat after dive and trying some wicked sunglasses:
Making fun of the Titanic and pozing for cheesy photos. We had lots of fun on the surface as well!What was special about this dive trip is that I was the leader of the last dive. Which meant that I had to do all the underwater navigation (which is not that easy as it seems for the first time because there is not much of reference), set the pace, make sure that everybody is following and we have a safe dive. Of course a dive master was covering my ass, but I guess I did well, as we surfaced right at the location we had to surface and we managed to see some sting ray as well.

I am leading the dive here:) Follow the leader:)
I am looking forward to my next dive trip where I will probably lead some more dives and become a dive master or master diver probably next year if I will have enough experience and time to get the certificate, hehehe.

Just a nice picture with the dive boat:

Addicted

I have to admit I have an addiction. I am addicted to Lychee. No, Lychee is not a girl if that’s what you were thinking about (that’s another story, yah?), but one of the fruits I discovered in Asia. Now is Lychee season, so I can fully satisfy my addiction.

It is sweet and delicious and juicy and soooo damn good:). Can’t stop eating lots and lots of it. If you want to seduce me or earn some brownie points, then bring me some more Lychee. Like 5 kg would be a good start….. Yeah…. I am off now to get some more lychee…. Yamm … yamm….

"Taraf de Haidouks"

The Singapore Art Festival offered an interesting show on its agenda: “Taraf de Haidouks” from Romania. These guys are playing gipsy music from Romania and they had two concerts in Singapore.

I managed to go and it was very nice, because these guys were very genuine and original. They were playing more Romanian and Gypsy folk music and the feeling was more like being at a traditional wedding or ball. It is very different then Hungarian folk music, but it was nice to hear live music. Actually I “consume” more Romanian culture here in Singapore then I did back home, hehehe. I also saw some movies (not that good one though) and a theatre play with Horatiu Malaele recently.

They made a good show and at the end of the show they just came down from the scene and started to play in front of the hall just like they would play on the streets and they even gather some money, just as the gipsy street musicians would do. The posh hotel where the concert was looked like a regular gipsy street and the atmosphere was just fantastic, people applauding, taking picture and having fun.

Had some discussions with the local people who participated at the concert to get their opinion. For them it took a while until they got into the mood of the concert and started to understand what this music is about. For them at the beginning it sounded very wicked and strange. It was probably just noise and some exotic sounds. But at the end I guess they got into it and started to enjoy it and understand a bit of it.

One thing is for sure with this EU integration. The exposure of Romania is much bigger in Asia then before and people are more curious to know more about Romania as an EU country as before here in Asia. The truth is that in Asia Europe means EU and whoever is not in EU does not really count. There were more activities in this past 6 months related to Romania then in the whole period since 2005. Lots of improvement needed in organizing and promoting these events (there are lots of issues with them, believe me), but at least something is moving forward. Good for the country.

Mobile phone usage in toilets

One of the funny things here in Singapore is that people are talking on the phone while they are at the toilet in office buildings. It is funny entering a fancy building’s toilet and hearing hard core business conversations from the “toilet cubicles”. It happens 7 out of 10 times I enter an office toilet (regardless of company or building).

I find it hilarious, just imagine a conversation:

"Dan: - Then should we do that million dollar deal lah? Can or cannot lah?

Sound of flush of the toilet in the nearby toilet cubicle….

Scott: -Ah…. sorry ah… just flushed your offer down on the toilet…. Please give me a better deal ma… one million cannot. Only half million can!"

Can’t imagine what one thinks when hears toilet flushing over the phone at the other end of the line in a serious business conversation…..

Is this a practice in other countries as well? Or only Singaporeans are that funny to think that only their voice can be heard over the phone and not the other toilet noises? Please share your experience if any :)

Sadness, Stress and Junk Food - That's My Theory

I had lots of junk food last week and drunk lots of coke and other fizzy drinks. I realised that there is a direct correlation between being sad, being stressed, unhappy and eating shit. At least in my case is true and statistically proven. I tried to look back to my periods of stress and unhappy times and it matches perfectly the times when I was eating fairly a lot at BK and McD and other random fast foods. Maybe it is like an instinct that the body knows what is bad and wants poison itself, so I am craving for shit food. I want to check this theory of mine, so let me know if this is happening with you as well or it’s only me who is weirdo?

So yeah…. if you see me eating fast food and drinking coke, then you just need to give me a hug hehehe.

On the healthier part of my life I just subscribed to run the half marathon in august (that’s 21 km). I really need to start training a bit. It is my test run before the full marathon in December (if I survive this one).

And there is a cool thing going on in the office (now that I am writing about healthy stuff), a vendor brings fruit salads and juices every day. So in the morning I just subscribe and pick what I want (i.e I feel like having a fruit salad pumped up with pineapple) and then they just deliver it to my desk. Isn’t that cool?

Competitor or what?

When I was a student and learned about competition I thought that competing companies are really enemies and would do anything to make the other company disappear. But working with MNCs and having visibility of the transactions of a big pool of global companies I realized that competition is fairly relative.

There are so many areas where competing companies cooperate, competing companies are suppliers for each other or provide services. It is somehow weird because every business one company would give to its competition basically it boosts the share price of the other company. And when share price is the ultimate goal of a CEOs agenda, then it is somehow in contrast with these “giving revenue to the competition” actions..

If you look at the advertising and the promotions, then yes, companies compete on one level: to get customers. However companies do not really compete in the process of delivering the goods and services for customers (they would cooperate with the competition just to satisfy the client). The persons deciding these have to be really with an objective mind and be able to balance between building strategies to kick the competition on one hand and on the other hand to cooperate in offering new products and services.

One example: a lot of mobile phones use chips from Samsung and competing with the Samsung phones on the market. I can’t really tell more concrete examples without publishing confidential information unfortunately, but if you are interesting in this topic, then you can surely get some facts and figures from the newspapers as well (like the Samsung one).

The same thing you can see in politics. Politicians have lots of speeches about how bad the other party is and how they want to make them disappear from the political scene, but in reality they have common businesses and they negotiate behind the back door dirty stuff.

I don’t really like this duality as I am mostly very passionate about what I do and therefore I always put my heart in one thing (be it personal life or work). I mostly like black and white decisions in issues regarding principles (like working with the competition or not). Of course being in the same business, you would cooperate at some level to represent the interests of the industry, but that does not mean that you generate revenue for the competitors. If this happens, it means that the area is too consolidated and there are just few players. Which is not good; it means that there is a small step to control the prices and that’s what hurts me…. and all the consumers.

Of course the issue is more complex then how I have described (I tried to make it a simplistic scenario), but my conclusion is that the concept of competition has to be re-defined from the consumer’s point of view. I guess this is one of the effects of a globalized world. Is it good or not? Time will tell.

I have been in Asia for too long ...

One of the stereotypes about Asians is that they send shit lots of SMS-es. Some of the people I know are so fast in typing on a phone that I can’t type that fast on a keyboard. Maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration, but somehow it shows how fast they are. And when you sign up for a mobile contract they have plans with like a thousand SMS-es. I was quite cynical when I saw that my plan has 500 SMS-es included, because I just never used before that more then 100/month.

I just got my phone bill and was very surprised to see that I used 653 SMS-es in one moth. Wow… that’s more then 20/day…. And this does not include international messages, or messages while on roaming, or the ones sent through work…. just local messages. I think that’s the indicator of becoming fairly local, at least in the way I use my phone :):):):)

What is your average number of messages you send in a month?

Hong Kong - a True World City

Peggy, my friend from AIESEC, moved back to Hong Kong and had some free time while she was looking for job (got one at HSBC Private Banking), so she invited me to visit Hong Kong and offered to show me around the city.
Peggy, me and Jackie Chan :):):)

It was a good decision to jump on a plane and go over, as Hong Kong is a fantastic city. Everybody compares Singapore and Hong Kong and there is a fair bit of competition between these two cities. But I guess the two cities can't be put in the same pot, as they are very very different and life is very different in these places. But will try to compare a bit below.

Hong Kong is very very busy, not much of greenery, there are thousands of lights on the streets, people everywhere and the city never sleeps. Proof of that is that there is public transportation even during the night, while in Singapore more or less the only option is to get an "uncle" to cab you home. I really liked the madness in HK, but I guess it would stress me out after a while.

The nightlife in Hong Kong is absolutely amazing, very cool places around and very cool people party even on the streets. It seemed that people going out there are not that show off as in Singapore, of course they have their fair bit as well. So if you are going to HK, I can recommend some nice places to hang out for a couple of drinks. The restaurants are cool as well, been to some very nice places at Soho and had some very good food and wine for very affordable prices. Unfortunately the Hungarian restaurant was closed, so could not enjoy that.
This party wants you! People drinking and chatting on the streets:

If Singaporeans are shopaholics, then honkies are super shopaholics. Everything is cheap there (much cheaper then Singapore) and there are as many malls and shops as in Singapore, hehehe. The plus in Hong Kong is that there are other things to do as well besides shopping, while in Singapore these things are fairly limited. So in that respect Hong Kong is more complex.

I guess in one aspect Singapore is way ahead of Hong Kong: housing. With all the nice houses and condos we have a very nice life here in Singapore. In Hong Kong houses are very small and very very expensive. What I liked in Hong Kong that there are hills and mountains and it is very much similar to my home :):):):) Of course nothing beats the Hargita :)

The HK Bay is a very nice area to visit, it is pretty much like in Shanghai, lights and skyscrapers everywhere. The light and laser show of the buildings is amazing and something very unique. In that bay area you really feel that you are in one of the world's most magnificent cities. The same cool view can be seen from the Peak. It was a bit foggy when I was up there, but still amazing. And the tram ride to there is wicked. Must try leh. :)

Food in HK is very oily, but except that it is pretty much the same as everywhere in Asia. Of course I tried the famous noodles, some oyster thing, the famous dim sum and some other strange foods. And the Wife Cake of course :):):) Probably for Chinese people the food is better and more authentic in HK then in Singapore, but I like more the food here. Maybe just because I got used to this one and my tastes are too much influenced by now.

Managed to travel to the outskirts of the city as well and visited a small fishing village as well with a huge sea food market and some nice beach at a small island. It was very relaxed and a very different view of HK, as in my mind HK was just a big city, never thought that it can have something else as well, haha.

I have been to some nice temples as well, it was nice to get a bit of spiritual energy and find a bit of peace, meditate and get some inspiration.

This is a family ancestry place. You can see the different generations lined up and having their memory kept for eternity in this way. Rich families had their own ancestry places in Hong Kong.

The weather in Hong Kong was great, not too cold, not tooo hot, just like summer at home. :):):) I had a fantastic time there and I am really looking forward to visit again that city. But still so many destinations in Asia where I have not been, so I really need to start visiting those, hahah. But my next trip is going to be a dive trip for sure!!!

Hong Kong is famous for being the scene of lots of movies and for its movie industry. So here is my own action movie from Hong Kong:

"Hey Bond, that's the way where the girls in bikini went. Let's follow them"

"I know that I look cool on this picture. The 007 is in action, and got to jail because of fraudulous charges. Will escaape soon and save the world. Muhahaha :)"

"I am climbing here the famuous Hong Kong bamboo constructions as you can see in all the Jackie Chan movies. Learned this trick from him, and now I can use it while running after the bad guys :):):)"

Macau - Between East and West

Been to Macau and Hong Kong like a month ago, but because I knew that it is a long entry with lots of pictures, I kept postponing it. And then I had time today, but still too lazy to write in one piece, so I write now only about Macau.

The best way to Macau is to take a ferry from Hong Kong, however you can take a direct cheap flight from Singapore as well. This city is a combination of everything. It is very small, but it has many different parts.

Why I wanted to go to Macau is to see the old Portuguese centre and feel a bit close to Europe. And indeed, that square in the centre of Macau is a bit of home:):):) It is very small but very nice. And the church ruins are very impressive and the small fortress. I wish Singapore would have a square preserved like that. It is interesting that wherever you go in Asia, you find a piece of Europe, from Macau to Hanoi, to Malaysia. My image of Macau was more like a Singapore style city with lots of casinos and fancy buildings, but the fact is that most of the city looks quite poor and the houses and everything looks more like the suburbs of Bangkok or Hanoi. So yeah, Macau is not only hard core cash and posh life.
The modern part of the city includes the Macau tower which is very cool place to go to. It has also the highest bungee jumping facility (232 meters). Unfortunately I was on Monday and it was closed the bungee jumping. I really wanted to do it, because this is the coolest in the world. So at least now I have a reason to go back in a weekend sometimes soon I guess :):):) What is different in this tower compared to the rest of the TV towers is that a part of the floor is glass and basically if you look down you see the ground. Feels like walking in the sky. Quite scary if you look down. You can also do some walk outside of the tower at 232 meters high. So if you are an adrenalin junkie, then it is a must go and try place!!!
And of course Macau is the biggest casino city in Asia and I guess in terms of casino revenue already took over Las Vegas, or something like that. The casinos were just as I imagined, fancy buildings with dark windows and lots of lights outside and hookers all around it:):):) Lots of people come to Macau to play and get some girls, which is quite sad I guess. I find it a bit the devil's place. But it is not worse then Bangkok or any other major city in Asia I guess in this aspect.
Actually this is a vulcano during the night:

If you happen to travel to China or Macau, then I advise you not to miss Macau, it is a good place:):):) Here is a floating chinese casino: