I’m going to Singapore on Monday for work. It’s a holiday in KL but I don’t really mind.

This time, Dell will be launching the new Alienware M11x, as well as a “recap” of what they showcased at CES2010. I’ll see if I have the time to meet up with Wei Yih or Yvonne at night.

It’s been a while since I set foot on the land of no-chewing-gum. I think the last time I went to Singapore was when LG launched the Prada 2. It was a day trip and I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted.

Chinese New Year is around the corner and this month is going to be hard for the magazine. It kinda clashes with my datelines. Oh well, I’ll just have to work harder before CNY.

Anyway, this is a short update and I’ll do a proper entry soon. Good night!

I am super busy with work right now so I took some time off to write here.

My writer Jee Yee took a week off last week and went to Bali. In his absence, we got three invites. Overseas invite. Maybe he needs to go off more often so we get more invites.

The first one is an invite to Showcase Nokia in Bangkok on the 22-23 February. I’ll be sending Jee Yee there so that he can experience a true media junket! Nokia has great media junket, as seen from my recent Germany trip.

A few days later, I got an email from Epson wanting to send us to Japan for their 3LCD technology’s 20th anniversary. I didn’t think twice and replied the mail the minute I got it! I’ve never been to Japan and this will be my first time. (See below)

After that invite, Lola asked me if we’re interested to go to Singapore for a Dell event, sort of like a follow up to CES earlier this month, where they will be showcasing a few of the products that they unveiled in CES. The trip is scheduled on 1st February.

I still don’t know if I should send Jee Yee or to go there myself. He is very interested at the Alienware M11X and they will be showing it there in this event. However, he just came back from a day trip in Singapore with Google and it’s been some time since I met up with Wei Yih. We’ll decide later lah.

Now for the Japan trip! The trip is 5 days, from 1st to 5th March but from what I gathered, I’ll be spending a lot of time travelling within Japan itself. I don’t have the itinerary with me but they sent me a brief skeleton of it:

1 March – Matsumoto Castle visit, welcome dinner

This means I’ll most probably be arriving in the afternoon. Matsumoto Castle is this really nice castle in Nagano. I’ve only seen these type of castles in comics!

Picture from Wikipedia used under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.

2 March – Shimauchi plant tour, journey to Tokyo, free and easy in Tokyo

Based on my “plant tour experiences”, the plant tour will take about 3 hours. I don’t know how are we going to Tokyo, maybe by train, maybe by bus, but I guess I’ll be reaching Tokyo in the afternoon. Apparently, Tokyo is huge because when I tell people I’m going to Tokyo, they asked me which part. I don’t know lah…hehe..

3 March – Flight to Chitose, Chitose plant tour

Based on the map, I think the flight will take about an hour and the plant tour will take about 3 hours. This day is most probably spent working the whole day.

4 March – Free & easy in Sapporo

Finally, a free and easy day. I don’t know what is in Sapporo but from what I gathered on the internet, Sapporo has about 103cm of snow in March and it’s snows 23 days the whole month. It’s been a long time since I played with snow. I’m looking forward to this.

5 March – Flight back to Tokyo and return

This whole day will most probably be a travelling day.

So there you go. My little update. I’ll update when I finish this month’s issue.

Since everyone is doing a “2009 in review” or “What to expect in 2010″, I’ll do one here as well.

I didn’t blog as much so I don’t really remember EVERYTHING. I’ll just list down the stuff I did in 2009.

1. Finally graduated with an MBA (my course ended Oct 2008 but graduation held March last year)

2. Became the Editor of CHIP Malaysia

3. Went to Taipei, Taiwan, for Computex

4. Went to Stuttgart, Germany, for Nokia World

5. Traveled Business Class to Germany

6. Didn’t really suffer from back problems and I hope it goes on like this

7. Got two cameras, a Panasonic LUMIX LX-3 which I REALLY love, and a Canon PowerShot S90 which I like as well

8. Got my first lens for the Nikon D90, the 50mm Nikon f1.8 Prime lens

9. Bought a Nikon SB-900 flash for my camera

10. Won quite a lot of stuff at events. Won second place at the Acer Racer Treasure Hunt with Huei and Ken

11. Bought a lot of gadgets, sold most of it as well

12. Attended the Manchester United Asia Tour press conference, got some of the coolest SWAGs from Nike

13. Watched Manchester United against the Malaysian Tigers at Bukit Jalil

14. Visited East Malaysia the first time in my life to attend John’s wedding.

15. Got A(H1N1) scare from Ken, which he contracted in Kuching (I think)

16. Celebrated my birthday in the office

17. Celebrated Christmas in the office

18. Managing my own staff for the first time in my life

19. Attended a few weddings

20. Can’t think of any…

To sum it up, 2009 was a good year for me. I don’t recall going through a tough time throughout the year. I don’t recall anything sad in 2009 (maybe because I’m just optimistic like that).

I hope 2010, the start of a new decade, will be as good or even better than 2009!

For that, I’ll end this entry by wishing all you guys a HAPPY NEW YEAR. May 2010 bring more enjoyment and fulfillment.

P.S. Oh yeah, I updated to Wordpress 2.9 and I just installed a new theme. Will be doing some changes to the blog soon.