I’m typing this at Starrbucks KLIA (the one after the immigration) and the next time I update this blog will be from my hotel room in Japan, using their super freakishly fast internet connection. Well, that’s what I hear lah, I don’t really know how fast is it.

Anyway, last week was pretty hectic. In fact, the whole of February was hectic. The Chinese New Year holiday didn’t help with the magazine’s dateline at all.

We went back to work on the fifth day of CNY but no one else was working. Products were not coming in, advertisements were delayed because of CNY. The short February month made it worse.

I managed to finish the magazine just before the trip, i.e. 3 hours before I had to leave to the airport. Let’s hope everything is smooth sail after this.

I’ll try to update everyday whilst in Japan, if I get an internet connection. Until then, happy Chap Goh Meh!!!

I am at the Subang airport right now typing this on my iPhone. Going to Singapore for the Dell event I mentioned in my last post.

Look at the propellers on this Fokker! I’m not too sure if it’s a Fokker though.

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.

This is the last installment of my Stuttgart trip posts.

In this entry, I’ll talk about the free stuff I got form Nokia World.

The red wine I got from the Nokia SEAP dinner. They gave each of us one bottle. Luckily I brought a spare bag with me. If not, I’ll most probably be drinking it in Stuttgart.

Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset (BH-214). All media people got this. As we were walking out from one of the interview rooms, they passed each of us one unit. Not too sure if I’m gonna use it or not.

I did what Malaysians do best – getting free gifts! I went to the Nokia Comes With Music booth and played a simple game. Three really easy questions and I got this, a 4GB microSDHC card. I told the others about this and they did it the next day, they got 2GB. I guess I was lucky.

They had a wall mural outside the experience lounge for people to write their thoughts. I wrote one and I got this, a Nokia WH-701 headset. I don’t have a Nokia phone with me to try it out and it is not compatible with the phones I have with me right now. I looks really high quality though.

They launched the Nokia MD-9 loud speaker there and we all got one each. I’m not too sure if everyone attended Nokia World got it or not as they were giving it out as a token if you’ve participated in the games at the Nokia World Party. The Malaysian and Singaporean media got it by default though. It comes with a Nokia branded gold plated 3.5mm to 2.5mm converter as well. I’ve never seen a Nokia branded one in Malaysia.

Since A(H1N1) is on the rise every where in the world, they had Nokia branded hand sanitizer at the counters everyday. These were snapped up pretty fast. I’m pretty sure it’s another brand with a Nokia sticker but it smells nice!

At the first keynote, this notepad and a pen was on every chair in the hall. You know, journalists and notepads – they are inseparable!

Well that’s all the things I got for free at Nokia World 2009. Let’s hope I’ll get invited to more media junkets soon!

Day 4 (4 September 2009)

It’s finally time to go back to Malaysia. For some reason, I got home sick on this day. Not too sure why. Anyway, we woke up a little late (9am) and had breakfast at the hotel cafe.

I had this every day! DAMN NICE!

After breakfast, we walked to the train station “near” the hotel. It was a 45 minutes walk and it was a really really nice day.

Look at the clouds!

I regretted not bringing my DSLR with me. It’d be nice to have HDR photos of clouds like this!

We arrived at the train station, albeit a tiny one, and bought our tickets. The machine was in German and thank God there was an English speaking lady to help us with the tickets. The train ride was about 25 minutes and we’re brought right into the middle of the city.

Tiny train station

We split into two groups, guys and ladies. I went with the guys obviously. We just walked around and took pictures of the city.

Nice water feature

Some building

An important person because he is so high up

An even more important person because he is even higher up

Me pointing at the even more important person

A building ( I think it’s a palace) behind the even more important person

Me lying on green grass. I like this photo, taken by David Chieng with my LX3.

We walked further and came to an area with a lot of people and tents everywhere. We found out that conincidently, it was some Stuttgart Wine Festival thing. David and I saw this sign-

1/2 meter Feuerwurst mit Brotchen

We had no idea what that meant but he “1/2 meter” on the sign indicated that it’s LOOONG. How long?

This long!

David and I having the 1/2 meter hot dog!

After hot dogs, we bought ice cream. Eating ice cream on a cool day like that was really nice!

Me with ice cream

We walked further and went to a sneakers shop. They were having a sale there but the prizes are only slightly cheaper than Malaysia. I bought a pair for Eileen since she always wanted a pair of Nike Cortez.

I bought the one with the green Swoosh. 40 Euros after 50% discount.

We noticed that it’s time to checkout soon and we can’t afford to take the train back and walk 45 minutes back to the hotel. We hailed a cab from the city and rode it back. We go into a brand new W212 Mercedes Benz E Class. We don’t even have it in Malaysia yet and they are using it as cabs! Anyway, every other car in Germany is a Mercedes Benz, can’t complain much there.

The interior

I couldn’t get an exterior shot because when we arrived at the hotel, it was raining. Really unpredictable weather!

My bags are packed the night before and all I had to do was to go to my room and get my bags. Checked out and chilled a bit at the hotel cafe because some of the them haven’t had lunch yet.

Our transport came at about 3.30pm and I was at the airport by 4pm. I always thought that I’ll be flying MAS back home but the others told me that we’re flying KLM. I had no idea how the Business Class seats at KLM are since I was only Googling for MAS seats.

After checking in, we went to the KLM Lounge in Stuttgart Airport. It was a really small one since KLM is not based in Germany.

The seats

The pantry

Coat hangers

Boarded the plane and the only difference between Business Class and Economy is this-

A detachable curtain!

The food

As we’re taking off

We arrived at Amsterdam Schipol airport. I saw a Rolex shop and went in to look for the Rolex Milgauss. They have one piece that arrived 30 minutes before I went in! I was in luck. The price is also cheaper than Malaysia. I bought it since my dad asked me to search for it.

Went through immigration and we saw these statues.

Two fat boys sitting on the floor

I knew I had to pose with them!

Three fat boys sitting on the floor

Since we had time, we went to the KLM lounge. This time, since KLM is based in the Netherlands, the lounge is HUGE!!! I went around taking pictures.

Look at the number of seats, each with individual power socket

Ramp leading to the pantry

They call this the Entertainment Center. I didn’t try it out though

Red and white

Heineken draft

It was a long walk to our gate and I had to take off my shoes and watch just to get pass security. I didn’t expect security to be so tight.

I went to my seat and the KLM Business Class seats are A LOT better than MAS’! The particular plane we’re on was only 2 weeks old, no wonder the things inside are so new.

My seat

Proper earphones!

The headset, with QWERTY keypad!

Sleeker than the MAS ones

This is at least 17 inches!!!

Plenty of storage space below the screen

Storage on the right of the seat

Storage on the left of the seat

More storage on the right of the seat!

Seat control. A lot less complicated compared to MAS’

Welcome drink

The toilet. Smaller compared to MAS’

Dinner was served about 1 hour after we took off.

Some salmon appetizer

My drink for dinner

Some fish thing

Dessert

The in flight movies are a little old and I only watched Wolverine. I’ve seen most of the others. I slept throughout the whole flight.

The flight attendant woke me up for breakfast and I got this-

Heavy breakfast!

After an hour or so, we landed at KLIA and this time, I got my luggage! Took the train home and went back to sleep!

Next: The things I got