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Support Tsunami Relief in Qurban Eid

Qurban Eid, one of the main events for Muslims where they sacrifice animals and share it with friends, relatives and most importantly with poor people. It is Qurban Eid soon, so let's donate our sacrifices to those affected from tsunami disaster. It is not necessary to cut and send meat, but money can be sent/transferred/donated and sacrifices can be cut on behalf of the sender. Detailed search on internet can provide some addresses where you can send money, below is one of the organizations organizing this action;
http://www.muslimhands.org/projects/qurbani-2005.php
As I know, also these kind of informations can be obtained from the mosques.
May our donations help those people to make their current life easier.
El fatiha...

DHL in action

BANGKOK Bangkok, 29 December 2004 -- the world's leading Express and Logistics organization, tomorrow (30 December) will deliver up to 40 tons of necessities and relief supplies donated via iTV by plane with a Boeing 727 to Phuket. This relief package includes vital items such as clothes, water and food as well as medication donated by the United Nation (UN). Previously, DHL delivered up to 50 tons of relief supplies and coffins to the disaster-stricken areas.

Most of us have already read, watched, heard a lot about recent tsunami disaster in South-East Asia.It is estimated that more than 150 000 people lost their lives. And many still missing... Who is responsible? Or would it be right thing to look for somebody who is responsible of the natural disaster? Answer is no! But would be more than right thing to look for responsible people who didn't take enough precaution to natural disasters. People have been living with disasters since the start of life, and they are aware of their existence, possibilities. In this disaster, if authorities of these countries had taken enough alarm systems against tsunami waves, then today the statistics of loss wouldn't be so big. Pacific Ocean is full of these alarm systems, but none in Indian Ocean?! Just to remind you that Tsunami waves hit India and Sri Lanka 4 hours after the earthquake! And it hit nearest country, Indonesia, after 1 hour and 1 hour is enough to inform and evacuate people. I just want to go couple of years back to earthquake disaster in Turkey where estimated 17000 people lost their lives. The main fault was then the weak fundaments of houses which collapsed down. And later it came out that less than normal amount of cement was used in most of the houses and similar kind of things were the result of deaths of many people. Again fault of authorities who couldn't control it, or ignored it. Do we always have to learn our lessons by experiencing the consequences?...

aibek.nomadlife.org

I joined Nomadlife blog community (it looks like all members are AIESECers), and new blog address is http://aibek.nomadlife.org

Thailand trip

"Sawasdee" (Welcome) was the first word I learnt in Thai language. There was a huge Sawasdee in Bangkok International Airport Arrival terminal. After getting cheap e-ticket from budget airline Air Asia, I was happy to be in this exotic and mysterious country. I have heard a lot of interesting things about Thailand, culture, people, food, Thaiboxing, massage, ancient architecture, elephants, beaches, palaces, ancient towns and, of course, its popularity as a sex tourism destination. Almost all the guide books about Thailand I read were mentioning about it, and I had a chance to witness this ?other face" of Thailand. So after 2,5 hour of flight on the board of Boeing 737, I was at Bangkok. There were lots of hotels, so we found one near to Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaew) area. We started our first day by exploring Grand Palace. The architecture was amazing, all the curvatures, artistic drawings and decorations were worth to see. Grand Palace hosts royal residence and throne halls, temple of Emerald Buddha, and beautifull architectures like reliquary in the shape of golden chedi, the Mondop (repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures), miniature Angkor Wat, the Royal Pantheon (in which statues of past sovereigns of dynasty Chakri is located), etc. After that, we headed towards Wat Arun temple (one of the attractions of Bangkok). After crossing Chao Phraya river by a 2-baht ferry, there was beautiful ancient but restored Royal temple - Wat Arun! Its shape somehow resembles mosque with minarets like in Turkey. But it was a big temple, all covered in thousands of porcelain and china decorations in myriad of patterns - a spectacle which is hard to find elsewhere. After exploring it by climbing stairs and walking around it, we took some cool shots for memory collection and went back to hotel. Next destination was night market. Also finally we had a chance to witness night life in Bangkok. Near the night market there were lots of bars and centers of nightlife and show places. As I reached the place, locals were trying to get our attention by offering all kind of live shows (you can imagine what kind of live shows they are). Lots of prostitutes hanging around the bars, a lot of guys-turned-to-girls were everywhere (coz of the business many men turned into women in Thailand, one of the sad and pity things there). Things were in extreme level there. After some shopping and nice dinner in Mexican restaurant, we went back to hotel.
Thai people in general seem very soft and polite, they always smile. Whether they understand you or not, they smile, bow and say "Yes!". Also they are not very familiar with English, even they don?t have many English signs in streets, shops, touristic centers, which is very surprising knowing that one of Thailand?s main income is tourism. Especially I had some difficulties with taxi drivers trying to explain them location we want to go, even map couldn?t help sometimes. Also traffic is really terrible, air is very polluted and it is very hot in November. All these things can easily depress any tourist, especially if you don't know much about Bangkok. But besides that we met a lot of friendly and helpful people too.
Second day started with a tour to explore more about Bangkok. I took train to Sukhimvit and then took a walk to Siam square which is more near to downtown. After a Siam square I went to see Victory monument ( there were nothing much to see actually), and then I went to some night street markets. After a good amount of coconut juice, i concluded our second day. On third day, i went to weekend market. It looked like those bazaars in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey but very big and full with all kind of souvenirs, clothes, stuff for very reasonable prices. Many Singaporeans come to Thailand for shopping because there are lots of different things here and prices are very low comparing to Singapore. After some shopping, i went to Bangkok zoo. Well i was so tired that neither zoo, nor the Marble temple attracted me much. So after a short tuk-tuk (it is a motorbike with a cabin behind) ride, i went back and headed to bus terminal to start our Pattaya trip.
Pattaya is small touristic town on the coast of South China Sea in south of Bangkok. It is popular with its beaches and nightlife. Coz i couldn't go to Phuket, which is more beautiful and exotic, due to less time and far distance, i decided to go to Pattaya to get some sun and swim. Unfortunately weather was not sunny, but still i had some swim in the sea. The very common view in Pattaya was a Caucasian(european) man (mostly old ones) with a local woman (mostly with sad face). Later we learnt that tourist rent women during their stay and they use them in every way, they walk with them, sleep with them, women do massage for them, women obey them in every way. That was very sad to know, those women spending their life in this way. Even most of their faces were sad and telling that they are not very fond of this life. Pattaya left some sad impressions on me.
On fifth day i was back in Bangkok. After getting a nice hotel near city area, i went out to tourist market and then for Thai massage. Thailand is popular for its massage!
Last day was unlucky for me. In the morning, due to passenger service tax at the airport I missed my plane. Then I had to pay another 120$ to get new ticket for the flight at 7 pm that evening. after that I spent whole day in airport. Luckily I like planes, so I spent most of day by watching incoming and outgoing planes and took lots of photos. Finally it was 7pm ann I flied back to Singapore. But bad luck didn?t left me there too. I reached last night train. Coz I was very tired I fell asleep and woke up at last station, Boon Lay. While rushing out of train, I forgot my plastic bag with souvenirs there. Train was gone back to garage, so I went and reported to security guards at station. Then I had to walk till home with my huge backpack, it was midnight and all transports stopped and I didn't have cash for taxi. So after 30-minute walk I was finally at home. It was around 1:30 am. In my room I threw myself to bed?

Pulau Besar - Melakka (Malaysia) trip

Pulau Besar is a small island very near to historical city Melakka in Malaysia. Almost every second building in Melakka is a museum now and that showst he great past of the city which was occupied by Portuguese, Dutch and English in past centuries. Now it is only a place to visit in Malaysia. Pulau Besar is also one of the beautiful islands of Malaysia. Actually, after being to Pulau Redang island on north-east of Malaysia 2 weeks ago, Pulau Besar gave me poor impression, sea was not as clean and clear as it was in Pulau Redang, so no snorkeling and underwater view. But what made that trip great and memorable was the trainee reunion! 15 of us (here is the line-up: Krishna (India), Michal (Slovakia), Devrim (Turkey/USA), Teresa (New Zealand), Luis (Brazil), Pilli (Kenya), Jona (the Philippines), Alex and Lars (Germany), Nacho (Argentina), Vega (Taiwan), Erik (Korea), Zulfi (Lebanon), Gitti (Hungary) and me (Kyrgyz boy) were there. Well? After a very short tour in Melakka, where we could only visit a fortress and museum - sailor ship (I think it was a historical Portuguese trade ship), we took a ferry to the island. We made some noise at the island that weekend. Swimming, singing, biking, eating, laughing altogether, we enjoyed it! Although sea was not clean to swim we enjoyed sitting on the beach, swimming pool was more better although it was clear that they hadn?t changed its water for a while. Karaoke session was fun as usual. Our bicycle tour ?around the island in 80 minutes gave us more idea about the island. Actually this island was full of golf courts in jungle, really cool place for golf lovers, and because it was not a golf season now, island was almost empty. Next thing was that we found a lost city in the island! Imagine a small town-village, almost all white stone buildings reflecting past centuries architecture, settled on the coast with a beautiful view. But completely empty(!), dead silence, with either broken or no glasses on windows, cut cables, swimming pool with brownish smelly water and grass that was not cut for a long time. It reminded us all those horror/mystery films where people suddenly disappear from the city which has its own ghosts, bad luck, etc. things were getting more exciting until a Malay worker came out of a shadow! All excitement was gone at once! Then we found out that it was a golf resort being repaired, renovated. Anyways, we named it as a Lost City and took some photos there. Another thing to remember was food! It was so good that Michal and Vega were insisting on that the thing they ate was fish nugget although it was chicken nugget, but cook approved us! (I think still there is a big difference between fish and chicken, even fried!) At the end of the trip we were tired but relaxed. Another great weekend and big mafia reunion!

Taiwan Trip - 1

Taiwan is an island country which is surrounded by South China Sea from the south-west, East China Sea from the north, Atlantic Ocean from the east. Although China and many other countries don't accept its independence, Taiwanese people still think they are independent and they have their own government. But recently Taiwan has shown big development, especially it is one of the leaders in IT in the world. And when you are in Taipei City, capital of Taiwan, you can easily see the way IT tools are used in daily life. But let me go to the beginning of my trip, to the Changhi airport where I was sitting on the board of Eva Air Boeing-747 and waiting to depart Singapore to fly to Taiwan. After getting very cheap plane ticket (75$ only without airport taxes, because of agreement between Eva Air and DHL, I could get %75 agent discount! Well, I like my yellow company!:-)) Taiwan is a country that I always wanted to see. It has a rich culture and arts, colorful people (people wear colorful clothes and also different colors are included in all other decorations). Streets were colorful, full of Chinese characters highlighted on boards. It looked a little bit like Singapore without English, Malay and Indian writings. One could see a lot of motorbikes in the streets, they are very popular in Taiwan. It looked as I was expecting, like all those streets that you could see on Chinese martial arts films that are very popular in my country. I visited Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (CKS is a leader of Taiwan who did important things in Taiwanese history), tourist night markets where we tasted different kinds of Taiwanese food (mainly fried) and visited snake alley(with real show of feeding python with alive chicks), Taipei 101 - world?s tallest building, really tall and nice architecture reflecting Chinese architecture, Taipei discovery center where we had chance to catch 360 degree rotating screen film show, Ximen street - colorful and crowded street where usually youngsters hang-out, in some IT stores full of gadgets of local brand with reasonable prices. But the best part was our visit to Jui Fen which is a popular weekend place for Taiwanese. It is a place with a wide sea view, place on a high hills near to coast, with green nature and cool weather (after 3 months of tropical weather, I felt back at home:)). It has street markets where you can find real Taiwanese delicious food, all kind of souvenirs reflecting Taiwan culture and history. We stayed in a nice house with real Chinese rooms (small rooms, high from ground level with sliding door, etc.) with a garden with sea view. It was amazing to be in countryside of Taiwan. I traveled a lot on the trains, walked a lot, ate a lot of Taiwanese food, and it was tiring but great 4 days?
?Plane was ready to take off. I was leaving Taiwan. Every good thing should be short, it was short but memorable. I left her back at the airport, but we agreed to meet for new travels and next destination would be Cambodia or Thailand. I was relaxed, fully rested and ready to get back to work.

Exploring Singapore

During some weekends when I was not traveling, I tried to explore and learn more about Singapore itself. It had nice attractions itself. My first explore of Singapore started with Gitti and Teresa who took me to Clarke Quay. It is one of the popular evening places in Singapore. Later Jane took me and Nik here too, also she showed us Esplanade theaters and open-air cinema in Fort Canning Park.
On one of my weekends I was at world-famous Singapore zoo. Although I have been to many zoos, this one was definitely much more bigger than others. For the first time I saw real elephant shows, clever elephants obeying all commands of their masters. I had a chance to see white tiger, hippos, lazy orangutans hanging in the shadow and small baboons running all around in Monkey World, kangaroos (even touched and took photo together with baby kangaroo), cobras and vipers, giant alligators and comodo dragon! The rest of the animals were those kind I have seen before.
On one of the weekends, my reception officer Sharon took me to some gadget shops and I bought my mobile phone and digital camera. Also I tried Chinese fortune telling machine which tooks photo of your face and palm and prepares report on that. Then a woman explained me the meanings and told me what kind of stones could help me to be more lucky, wealthy and achieve success. As I don?t believe to such things I just listened to her, and she ended up trying to sell me some of those stones for the price of 60-70 dollars, hahaha! Another kind of business!... I told her that I can achieve what I find on my own way, without help of those stones. Later, on one of street markets we could buy same stone for 5 Sing dollars, and I bought just for decoration.
On another weekend, I went to Sentosa island. Sentosa is a small island on the south of Singapore. It is one of the main weekend places for Singaporeans. It has some beaches, golf resorts and some attractions like Underwater world, Dolphin lagoon, cable cars, Insect world, Musical Fountain show, Merlion, etc. Although I go there every week to play football for DHL team (our team FC D.H.L plays in amateur league), I haven't seen much of Sentosa. So I went to Underwater world where one can catch lots of sea inhabitants including sharks, sea horses, jelly fish, sword fish, sea cows, etc. I saw real big bull sharks there for the first time. You just walk in a glass tunnel and enjoy underwater life. Next I met Zulfi and we went to Merlion and to Musical Fountain show. The last one was amazing. Different water fountains, music, laser show and multimedia projection were combined in a 30-minute show and could easily amaze its audience.
Also I had a chance to go to Kampong Glam Muslim Food festival. All kind of Malay foos was there and it was one of rare chances to catch it. It was Food Festival season in Singapore then. Earlier that day, while I was visiting Sultan Mosque - biggest mosque in Sinagapore, I met some Indonesian girls who announced me as Indonesian idol and invited to Indonesia for Ramadan holiday.
Next place to visit was Tampines. It was Jane who suggested me to see that place. She was from Tampines, a-haa! It is sweet place with nice parks.
I live near to beautiful Chinese garden, and in September there was 1-month Lantern Fun-tasy festival there. It had a theme "Journey to the west" and was combination of Disney world made of colorful lanterns. As a big trainee group, we had a chance to see art of lanterns, lion dance show, acrobatic shows and take some cool shots.

Redang Island, Terangganu, Malaysia

Before coming to Singapore I was expecting to be more tropical. But unfortunately it is hard to feel that you are actually on a tropical island here, it looks like just a modern city. Only hot and humid weather reminds you that it is only around 100 km away from the equator line. But then our big organizer Gitti came to my cubical one day asking if I want to go beach paradise island Redang on the north-east of Malaysia. Without thinking much, I said "Sure!"
?After a long 10-hour bus journey we through almost whole Malaysia, we were finally at the ferry stop. After a small shopping sessionJ, we took jet ferry and it took around 40 minutes to reach this earth paradise. I don?t how to describe it, but basically white sand, blue and crystal clear sea, and jungle with coconut palms. Island was just like the ones I read from my favorite childhood books like Robinson Crusoe, etc. Island was famous with is natural beauty, snorkeling and scuba diving places (with sharks!). After getting our chalets in Redang Resort, first thing we did was to explore the island. It looked amazing, almost preserving its natural beauty, only those few hotels and resorts on the island reminded that it is no more an unexplored island but tourist attraction. Next thing was snorkeling. It was the first time in my life. I was shocked and amazed to sea underwater world with my own eyes and to be so close to it. Place was full of coral reefs, all kinds of colorful fishes, underwater plants, sea cucumbers, sea stars, etc. And there were hundreds of fishes swimming around me. Some of them even tried to bite my fingers. Nacho was in action there chasing the fishes. Then we enjoyed just swimming in the crystal clear sea and played beach volleyball. In the evening there was a great barbeque dinner with a lot of seafood, and after that we headed to other hotels and resorts for some drinks, billiard games and finally we sat by sea till late night. One day holiday was definitely not enough for us. I hope I will get chance to go there again one day and stay longer.

AIESEC in Singapore Recruitment Camp

This is an AIESEC event, or recruitment camp, for newly joined juniors. Basic introductory seminars, AIESEC culture, some simulations and games, activities helping juniors to learn more about AIESEC are parts of this camp. Of course, teaching AIESEC dance, AIESEC parties with crazy competitions and finally initiation to AIESEC are fun parts of camp too. This year it was held in SMU campus. For me it was also new. But although being non-AIESECer, I volunteered to be an orientation group leader for a group of juniors. I was given team "Estonia". As a group we had a lot of fun. Miss AIESEC AROC was also from our group (this is a beauty competition of boys dressed like girls). I had chance to meet a lot of new friends, learn more about AIESEC, learn some AIESEC dances (although they are too crazy and I am a serious person (hmm, am I ?!)), some country roll calls (like "Ass-toe-knee-eye" for Estonia), we (Teresa, Celine, Cyrus and me) won the sculling competition (it is a beer drinking competition, but as a non-drinker I contested with Coke), and finally was initiated to AIESEC! Here, we were supposed to enter completely dark hall. I volunteered to be the last one among around 100 people to enter. I entered and was asked who I am. When I said "Aibek", whole crowd started to welcome me in chorus "Aibek, welcome to AIESEC!". And I was supposed to crawl all the way between 2 long rows of AIESECers (first comes girls then guys) who were welcoming me and at the same time hitting, touching and pulling you back. Imagine you are crawling in a dark and a lot of hands are touching, hitting you, pulling you back although you are trying to crawl forward. I even tried to get on my feet, but they even didn?t allow that, and you can?t see their faces. But when the whole crowd was saying my name, for the moment I felt like a superstar (haha!). It was tough to reach the other end, though I was tired and my elbows and knees hurt, I enjoyed it! Yeah, I am an AIESECer now! And it is amazing to be part of this very big family. Also I got my first AIESEC t-shirt thereJ. Well, that was another memorable day of my traineeship in Singapore.

Cameron Highlands - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) trip

Here comes the story of my first step to Truly Asia, or Malaysia! I always used to wonder about this country, heart of Asia. Popular with its beautiful nature and touristic attractions, it was really one of my dreams to see this country. First target was Cameron Highlands, popular with its natural beauty, tea plantations, strawberry farms and cool highlands, it is located on the North East of Malaysia, 4-5 hour car drive from Kuala Lumpur. So, one nice Friday evening (this is our favorite evening, end of week and beginning of weekend!) me, Gitti and Nacho took a bus to KL(stands for Kuala Lumpur). Once I passed the borders, there it was - Malaysia!!! Feeling was great, I stepped to another new country (one more place to "tick"!). Well, we reached KL, and I was surprised to see that things are very different than Singapore. It was not as clean, as modern as Singapore, but still people were same with majority of Malays. We met there Pauline (or Pilli, from Kenya, DHL trainee) and Erwan (DHL trainee from France). So after a short tour in KL, we headed the Cameron Highlands, Erwan driving brand car Proton. One thing I like about traveling with trainee friends is the way we have a lot of fun. After a fun trip full of jokes and songs, we were at Cameron Highlands! Green jungles were everywhere, and I could see real tea plantations! We were to stay at small lodge called "Daniel's place" (coz its name we were keeping asking staff where actually Daniel was). We spent day by going to Food Festival, jungle walk, having fun of Asian pose and trying to behave like Singaporeans to spend time by "shopping and eating" :) (hope my dear Singaporean friends don't take this seriously, it was just for fun, we all respect Singapore and its residents). The next day we visited tea plantations and bought some fresh Cameron tea to enjoy it and remember this day back in Singapore. Back in KL, we "did shopping and ate" again :). "King Arthur" was to complete this tiring day. At night I took my bus back to Singapore to reach for Singapore National Day celebrations.

Pulau Ubin, Singapore

Pulau means "island" in Malay, so as u can guess Pulau Ubin is an island. It belongs to Singapore and it still preserves its natural beauty, real tropical island with those huge palms, coconut trees and wild monkeys. This is the place we went on my first weekend. Me and two AIESECers from Hong-Kong, Stella and Tracy, took a ferry in the morning. After a short sail we found ourselves among big palms of Pulau Ubin. The best thing you can do there is to rent a bicycle and ride along the island. Unfortunately, Stella didn't know how to ride a bicycle so I had to take the one with 2 seats, it was tiring but at the end of the day we became good friends. Island was beautiful, wild and full of trees and plants that I have never seen before. We took a break at the resort where we had the chance to get boats (canoes) and spend an hour on the lake. Cool water was what we needed in hot weather! Another interesting place was the Buddha temple on the other end of island. There I met real monks, dressed like Shaolin monks (maybe they were Shaolins?..). Maybe because it was my first step to explore Singapore or say tropical Asia, it was one of the unforgettable days in Singapore.

Traineeship at DHL

First of all, I am really happy to work in one of the world's biggest companies, one of the leader companies in global logistics. It is DHL ("We move the world", "No one knows Asia Pacific like we do", bla bla...). In DHL, I am working as Applications Programmer, implementing some software tools/products, at Business Process and Organization department of DHL Danzas Air & Ocean. My task is to help to optimize existing AspaNet project (which I was supposed to do but later different projects were given to me), develop new software applications. Our department provides all kind of support to other departments of DHL Danzas, and some trainings. My part is in IT support. Briefly, my colleagues are Mr.Ko Guan Seng (head of BP&O in Asia Pacific), Andrew Goh (deputy to Ko Guan Seng), Hou Boon Ang (my boss, software engineer), Joe Poon, Hai Thong, Jacques, Jo Prisca, Sherry, Linda, Nello and Terry. The first big project that I was given was OceanSMS, software program which will be used by DHL Ocean Freight. Later I worked on different versions of this project; multi-language version, client-server ftp module integrated, later I developed Air SMS and then they were combined as Air&Ocean SMS project. My office is located on the 23rd floor of Parkview Square, it is one of the most beautiful buildings in Singapore. There is a nice view of Singapore from up there. Working environment is very professional, people I work with are professional so I have everything to become professional too (hopefully). Projects are not easy, challenging, with strict deadlines. Most important is that I am learning a lot.

Food

It took not long to get rid of jetlag, adapt to environment and work, but it took some time to adapt to climate and food. For food I can dedicate a whole chapter, coz of its variety and importance in Singapore culture. Because Singaporeans are originally coming from Chinese, Indian and Malay, and also because Singapore is located at the centre of Asia Pacific, one can find huge variety of Chinese, Indian, Malay, Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese and western cuisine and Singapore is full of restaurants, cafes, big and small eating places. What we are doing is that trying to taste as many different types of food as possible. We are lucky to have Bugis Junction nearby where we usually go for lunch. What can be pointed out about food is that it is very spicy! Rice, noodles and chicken are very popular, I am sure at the end of the year I will be sick of them. Also you can find a lot of seafood, may taste frog legs and shark soup J, well I did? as a result, after eating frog legs, back in the office I ate a lot of cookies and drank juice to get rid of that taste, haha, probably that was the first and last time that I tasted frog. (Small story to share; it was our department lunch with all my bosses and colleagues, as our boss Mr. Ko Guan Seng suggested to taste something different like frog legs, and my reaction was like ?No, we don?t eat frogs!...?, which made Hai Thong to react ?We don?t eat frogs too! We eat only frog legs!? which brought a big laughter J. I didn?t think much, it was just another ?Why not?!?, and ended up with frog legs to taste). Frog legs taste like chicken, but more fatty. (I know? my friends from Kyrgyzstan and Turkey will hate me for that? ;-)) I tasted shark soup in one of our lunches at Ritz Carlton hotel during Regional BP&O department meeting. What I like here is the possibility to get tropical fruits a lot and for very cheap price. Also concept of chopsticks was very new for me, trying to master with them now.

Flatmates

My flatmates are Susan (Indonesia, student, president of AIESEC in NUS), Zhou Ning (China, works at NTU) and Lisheng (Hong-Kong/Singapore, student from NUS). Well J, many people smile when I tell them that I am living with 3 girls, haha, actually at the beginning it was like we would be 3 guys and 1 girl, but things went the other way and we ended up with this group. We are all good friends, and it is good sometimes they cook some soup for meJ. Also we have 2 temporary flatmates; Monika (Germany, AIESEC internal trainee) and Erik (Korea, trainee at HP). So it is like a big international family, kinda UN office in Asia Pacific, hehe…

Mayfair, home in Singapore

It took about 1 month for me to get a new place to live, finally I ended up in Chinese Garden area, west of island, with a famous Chinese and Japanese Gardens nearby. We rented a condominium apartment (that is what they call here an apartment with all facilities like swimming pool, gym, tennis court, bowling alley, etc.) in The Mayfair, one of the most beautiful apartments in neighborhood.

DHL Mafia and other new friends

So the new chapter of my story begins, and after flying over 40 hills and 40 seas, I landed in Singapore? (we had a short stop at Bangkok, Thailand) Yes, I was finally in Singapore!!! Frankly, after many stressful days of exams, preparations and rush, it was hard to believe that I am in Asia Pacific, another part of the world. Tong Lee and Sharon (my reception officer from AIESEC Singapore, who is responsible of me) were waiting for me. They were my first friends here. Everything seemed ok till I got my first shock; when I just walked out of airport, I was hit by very hot and humid air! That reminded me that I was in tropical climate. First days I stayed at Fortune Jade with my new big future friends like Devrim(US/Turkey), Teresa(New Zealand) and Nacho(Argentina). All of them are AIESEC trainees and they work for DHL too, or what we call here as mafiosas! Well, I was nominated as Mafiosa-022. Also there are Gitti (Hungary), Krishna (India), Steve (Kenya, ex-trainee), Cecilia (Hong-Kong, ex-trainee), Lars (Germany, ex-trainee) and in September there will be new mafiosa, Michal (Slovakia), arriving for traineeship. All of us work in DHL Regional Office in Parkview Square, which is located at Bugis, one of the central places in Singapore. Jane, Zafirah, Weihan, Chong Wey, Qian Wen, Dong Wei, Triin, Marek were among first friends that I met here. I am very grateful to all these people, especially to DHL Mafiosas, who helped me a lot in my first days, shared their house and time, guided me how to make my stay in Singapore easy, fruitful and fun! Most of my time I spend with them, we hang out a lot, travel to other countries, share all fun together.

Welcome dinner

Welcome dinner and first pick up.
It was at the usual place AIESECers used to have welcome dinner for new trainees, it was in Lau Pau Sat. I met lots of AIESECers and trainees (unfortunately it was hard to remember Chinese, malay and Indonesian names). There I had my first Malay satay. That place has big variety of food to offer to its customers. After dinner I joined some mafiosas for some trainee and AIESECers gathering at newly opened bar in Orchard road. It was ladies night (means ladies get drinks free) and was very crowded. I met there Jane for the first time. Also I met there Weihan, Fabien, Marek and some other AIESECers. As a non-drinker I ordered my juice and enjoying baby sharks at nearby aquarium and talking with Jane (I met her here for the first time), Weihan and Fabien. For the moment I was alone, and another girl sat nearby me and asked my name, I was surprised! She directly went to subject and told me that her friend wanted to meet me but she was shy, and also she invited me to her birthday party that Saturday. It was so sudden and unexpected! Some trainees noticed it and just smiled saying "Welcome to Singapore!". I also said myself "Aibek, things are different here". Well, AIESECers just forced me to go and meet that girl, and I just gave my name card and tried to put full stop on that. That was the first time I noticed that I would be popular here :). It was unexpected and different kind of experience. Thing is that I don’t remember her nam:) J.

Traineeship story...

Here I put all writings from my traineeship story that I used to keep updated with me, from now on I will be directly blogging them here....

Before coming to Singapore
Well, many people in Central Asia and Turkey still don’t know much about Singapore, so did I. What was my first feeling when I heard that possibly I will be going to Singapore for AIESEC traineeship at DHL?!! I looked at the map!!! I knew it was somewhere in Asia Pacific and it took some time for me to find its exact location. It was an island! And it was almost on equator line!!! “Ohhhooo!” (or “Oha lan!” in Turkish) was my first reaction. I didn’t know much about it, I’ve only heard that it has been developing rapidly, that there are some really strict rules and big fines like “500$ fine for chewing a gum” (!) and that it was very clean country!! The next thing to do was to open old buddy Google and ask for brief info about country. After going through all the process of work permit and visa applications which took more than a month ( thanks to Zafirah who helped me a lot, answering all my questions and directing me in arrangements), I went back home to Kyrgyzstan for only 2 weeks (after being away for 3 years, I missed it so much, every stone, every corner,….. .. sounds like a poetryJ), my sister and my brother looked so grown-up! I spent 2 weeks with my family and also I visited my brother and his wife in Almaty, had the chance to explore Almaty, ex-capital of Kazakhstan, very beautiful city indeed!! After 2 short weeks holiday at home, anyways, I went back to Turkey to give my final exams. My starting date for traineeship and final exam dates were coming to same dates, as a result, I gave my last final exam and the next day I was on my way to new experience, new life, new adventures!

On the plane
It is hard to leave a place where you spent some wonderful years, so was to leave Ankara after 6 years of study and work. A lot of friends, a lot of nice memories are left behind, and just taking only 1 suitcase of the most necessary things with me, I headed to Istanbul to fly to Singapore from there. Till the moment the plane took off, I didn’t realize that I was leaving Turkey, and going to the place I have never been before and I didn’t know anybody. Everything was new, it was like to start everything from zero, it was very exciting! I tried not to think about future, coz I was sure that a lot of nice things would be waiting for me there. Did I know at that moment that I was going to have great experiences in Singapore, meet a lot of new friends, work in one of the most beautiful buildings in Singapore (Parkview Square), have possibility to travel to many countries in Asia Pacific, and most importantly that I would meet very special person here?... Answer was no, I didn’t know anything, just hoping to experience a nice traineeship and rest after my tough 2 years in University & Student Senate & Part-Time work. I was just trying to relax on the board of THY Airbus A-320.

Why blogging?

Why I decided to blog? Coz this is the common thing that people do when they are abroad? coz I followed the crowd with common sense of crowd mentality? coz it is popular? etc.
Well, I thought about blogging a lot but what prevented me from doing this is my own web-site. I wanted to have something different than everybody has. But due to my busy work schedule and things to do after work, I still couldn't manage to finalize my web-site. I also feel and want to share all my experience here in Singapore with my friends back in Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, that's why I've been writing my Traineeship Story to share it on a web-site. After all, simple blog-site could provide me immediate opportunity and I think no need to "reinvent wheel again"... Still web-site will be published (www.aibasoft.com). So starting from January, 1st, which is beginning of New Year and my birthday, I will be updating anybody-interested-what-kind-of-life-i-have-here. So welcome or Selamat datang!

Back to beginning of story... Before my traineeship.

Before coming to Singapore for traineeship, I was in Ankara, Turkey. I was the student of METU, took active tasks in Kyrgyz Student Senate (for which I was president in 2003-2004 year), was a goalkeeper of my team (here I am striker now!:-)), etc. I had one of my best years in Ankara to meet a lot of Kyrgyz, Turkish and other foreigner friends. University life was tough, challenging and at the same time dynamic and full of excitement and enthusiasm, and it had its ups and downs. My tasks in student society added another dimension to my learnings, it took me into active youth work which helped develop myself a lot in leadership, interpersonal communications and being initiative. Especially my last year was very stressfull but at the end of the year I was the one who benefit a lot from that...

24-year old !

01.01.2005...00:03 a.m., Esplanade area, Singapore. I am officially 24!

Hello World!

When someone learns how to write computer programs in some programming languages, usually they start with printing "Hello World" to greet the World, to start new programming experience, thus, new life. This is my "Hello World" of my blog.
Hello World!