Photo time

Wow! What a ride.

Thank you everyone for reading! I’ll be continuing this blog in March for another trip, so stay tuned 🙂

Photos are not in any order. Locations: London, Madrid, Doha, and Singapore.

Globe trotting

London's Heathrow International

I have to say that I think it’s pretty dam awesome to have just flown around the world in such a short period of time! It’s quite a journey, yet I encourage everyone to do it! Sure I could have taken a flight from Singapore back to LA, but that’s no fun, I’d rather go the long way home! In the process I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many amazing people, seen some breathtaking views, dabbled with foreign cuisines, and a lot of fun going on mini adventures for what has become a very memorable and meaningful trip. Although my body is exhausted from traveling, I’m deeply reflective about it all and my mind is wide awake. I feel truly fortunate to have traveled to the places I did for so long… and I can’t wait until I can do it again.

Although I didn’t return with a fist full of job offers, I’m confident that I will in the near future. Singapore is booming and the potential there is bursting at the seams.

Yet, besides the networking opportunities and career leads, I came away from this trip knowing a little more about myself. I had some of my expectations fall short, for example, I figured I would really like London, but how wrong I was. And some experiences which I didn’t expect were really surprising and enjoyable.

I have two new favorite airlines now: Air New Zealand and Qatar Airways. Both are excellent in customer service, and they have personalized monitors in each seat to play games, watch movies, or listen to music. They even have USB ports to use your own laptop. I’m not use to that when flying with American companies.

An another note… so I get that America does things different than the rest of the world in measurements in standard rather than use the metric system, yet some of the language differences I don’t get. For example, the letter “Z” is pronounced “Zed” where as American’s say “Zee”, which is the proper way. You don’t go around saying New Zedland you say New Zealand. There is no “D” in there!

Anyways, I made it home safely and I’m glad to be back home! I’m excited to start classes tomorrow, and I can’t wait to eat tacos, a cheeseburger from In-and-Out, and drink a good beer.

Logged 13,381 miles in 27 hours and 40 minutes of flight time.

I’ll be posting photos soon, yet until then here is my travel map.

Ah…

I appreciate a well run hostel. I’m back here at Clink Hostel in London for the day before I head out to have a conversation with Allyson Stewart-Allen, owner of International Marketing Partners here in London.

This morning I was awaken, surprisingly not by snoring or excessive coughing, but from someone grabbing my leg and shaking it – it was the hostel staff’s wake up call. Since I no longer have a phone I asked them to jab me with hundreds of plastic sporks until I started laughing. Apparently they didn’t like my idea.

I think the French youth are on holiday as nearly everyone here is from France.

The name "London" is actually Old Old English for no sun and bitter cold.

Well I was correct… I again will not see the sun while in London. Well done, Queen, or should I say Mother Nature! I’m hip to your game. I know you’re the same person! You do this whole rain and cold weather bit just to push up beer sales. Well that’s brilliant, but give it a rest damit.

It’s early here and I’m off to try and eat something other than an English Breakfast.

CHEERSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Making the best of it

I’m not sure what day it actually is since I’ve been switching time zones everytime I wake up, and none of the computers here seem to have the correct time or date as they are all different. I took a sleeping pill shortly after leaving Singapore to knock me out from the 6-month old baby screaming in my ear, and the poor grandfather sitting on the other side coughing heavily with some sort of chest infection. As a result my carelessness, and wanting to desperetly get away from this family as fast as possible, I’m pretty certain I left my phone on the plane. Sucks. Oh well. I was pissed at myself for the first hour, but what good is going to do. I see it as a positive as I can now be more adventurious without relying upon technology, that and stop receiving text each time I land from the local phone company telling me how much they are going to gouge me for being on their phone network.

I have a few hours before my connecting flight back to London, so I’m sitting here in the cetner of Madrid (Sol) at a internet cafe eating anything that looks eatible since I managed to sleep right through all my in-flight meals.

I must say that the people in Doha at Qatar Airways did the best they could to help find my phone. At the end I just said screw it, it’s gone. And if I’m going to lose it, I’d much rather lose it this way. I’m just glad it wasn’t my passport.

I haven’t lost my luggage, I still have my wallet and passport, and my health is golden – I’ve had an amazing experience the past 4 weeks, so I don’t see any reason to be concerned about anything else.

At least there is sangria!!

I’m going to go see if I can smuggel some sangria into my bags before heading back to the airport, and if not I’ll be sure to drink a lot of it 😀

 

 

Until next time Singapore

Another meaningful and memorable experience! Singapore you’ve been amazing, and I can’t thank you enough!! I fly out here in a few hours and I quickly wanted to pay tribute to you. Your food is delicious with hints of regional tastes, your culture is, well… unlike any other; hard to describe yet fun to be around. Your weather is actually not bad either. I think the reason why everyone here looks 12 is because of the heavy humidity. Lastly your people are incredibly nice, too nice. I’m impressed.

The trip here started out with a Singaporean girl stealing my seat on the airline, well not actually, but the flight was empty and she took the seat that I was going to steal with more leg room by the window. Nevertheless, she turned out to be quite awesome! I figured anyone who can trump me for a seat is worth getting to know 🙂 Jes you’re the best and I can’t thank you and your friends enough for showing me such a great time here! Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you or any of your group find themselves in the Los Angeles area.

Also, I need to quickly give a BIG BIG thank you to rockstar Thanh Lu for introducing me to So-Young Kang, you’re the best! Thanks again! So-Young is the CEO of Awaken Group and previously of McKinsey Consulting. If you have a few minutes I recommend checking out her TEDx Singapore talk: here.

Okay, so this is bad for me to admit, but I’m actually excited to leave Singapore, 1) because I’m eager to get back home and get back to classes, but 2) is mainly because I discovered this show on the in-flight program called “Suits”, and I’m hooked! I don’t watch TV so this for me is essentially crack. I watched shows 1-3 and purposely stopped so I could finish the rest on my flight. Don’t JUDGE ME! I can’t help it if the lead attorney reminds me of myself 😉

No need to cry Singapore or hold parades in my honor. It’s a nice gesture yet that is not necessary, but I thank you. I’ll return soon.

So I’ll leave you with some of the best of my Singaporean discoveries. I’ve included a soundtrack below for viewing.

Off to Doha!

Enjoy!

4am power struggle

Sentosa club

I’m proud to report that salsa dancing is alive and thriving here in Singapore. After visiting a few clubs with my awesome new Singaporean friends, I had my fair share of drinks, cranberry vodka to be exact. I wish I could say that it was my winning smile that got me all those drinks, yet it was a friend of a friends birthday and he was very happy to share with everyone in the group. Although I did offer to pay, my offer was declined. I absolutely do not want to be perceived as the ungrateful American that is here for free-lunches, plus I believe in reciprocity.

Side note: I’m sitting here at the computer desk in the hostel and sitting at the computer to my right is Captain lip smack. He is eating, no, he is camel lippin’ his food which is the classic hostel breakfast of strawberry jam on toasted bread. I don’t understand how he cannot hear himself. I’m putting my headphones on. He is like a cow smacking his lips together on peanut butter. Oh well, at least he is one of the lighter cast of characters that I’ve come across at his hostel in the past couple of days. The majority have been really cool, others, not so much.

Again, driving on the wrong side.

So after dancing the night away we all took taxis home since it was pouring rain, that and no other public transportation operates during early morning hours here. Random: taxi drivers here are called uncle, and I’m not sure why. Needless to say, they drive on the wrong side of the road, and I was happy to be back at the hostel. I quickly changed out of my sweat-soaked dress shirt and showered, yet once I got out of the shower I felt like I stepped right back in another one with the humidity being so high here. I climbed up to my bed, which is the second bunk, fluffed my pillow, turned on the old-school rotating fan, and went to sleep. I’m a big supporter of hostel dorm room fans, especially ones in tropical environments like Singapore 1) because it helps cool the room when sleeping, and 2) some of these bastards straight up smell, so the fan helps push the stench in the other direction, and 3) the subtle operation noise from the fan oscillating makes other background noises like violent snoring more tolerable.

Right corner of the 30 bed dorm

Left corner of the dorm

As I’m laying there thinking about my career, running with the bulls, and school loans, some fucker gets up, walks over to my bed and turns the fan off. Now keep in mind there are 28 other people sleeping in this dorm room, in Singapore, which is dam near on the equator, and that night it was warm, plus I had just been dancing so I was also still hot. Because the room was dark I couldn’t see who it was but I could see which bunk. This was validated by the closeness of the squeaks and creaks of the beds with even the slightest movement. I immediately smiled and thought, “Let the fun begin!” I love trivial power struggles, especially over something like a fan. I took a couple of seconds to think out their motivation for turning the fan off. Obviously it wasn’t personal because they didn’t know me or couldn’t see me. I thought maybe they were cold, or the fan was blowing too strong towards them, or it was simply too loud. All logical reasons to not want the fan on. Yet, the location of the fan is directly above me. If I was to get up too fast I would hit my head on it. So I thought, 1) they can’t be too close to feel that disturbed by the fan, 2) the other people snoring was much louder than any noise a fan could produce, and 3) it was by no means cold. So I figured they simply wanted to play, and damit I paid just as much to be here as they did, so I then turned it back on and waited. I laid their hoping they would get up and come turn it off again. I was now in the mood to play fan operator! Oh Joy!! About 5 minutes passed, and yup they got up, walked over, and turned the fan off. This time they stood there for a moment, it was then I knew – GAME ON! They were looking for a response or a challenge. It was then I was starting to have fun. I played docile for a moment by not doing anything until I could hear them go back to their bed and lay down. Once the creaking sounds stopped and I heard them breath a sigh which further let me know they were laying down, I made sure they heard “click” and then again the fan was on! It was awesome! Something so small was so fun, yet I imagined them being so bothered by it, and I was on the verge of laughter.

I was hoping for retaliation, so I played the waiting game. I pulled out my phone and played a few rounds of Texas-hold-em thinking they would come back to turn the fan off. They didn’t, yet when I woke up a few hours later the fan was off, and it was by that time the sun was up and I could see who the culprit was. Judging by his LV luggage and the clutter of shit with piles of clothes on his bed I was dealing with an brat adult. I can’t wait for tonight! I think I’ll turn the fan on high and point it down towards his direction.

Hungover with motivation

With regards to the previous shitty hostel, I decided that my time here is more precious than the money I spent on the extra night, so, in short, even though I’m pissed I decided to simply let it go. My time is better spent on keeping notes of my time here, following up with contacts, and networking. Besides the scathing review that I’ll be giving them will be entertaining for me. I’ll be sure to share.

Suiting up in my new hostel was quite interesting as everyone stared with quizzical looks, and a couple scowled that I had the audacity to even wear a tie in a hostel. I didn’t much care as I was a bit mug myself as I had a hangover. I just wanted to get to the career and networking fair at the Singapore Marriott. I managed to meet some really cool locals who invited me out last night for drinks and to see Singaporean comedy. The comedy was actually good, and the drinks were delicious. 8 leads with business cards and 3 long islands later I was done for the night. Hitting the pillow at roughly 4am I was instantly dreaming of Hale Barry in her cat-woman suit and cruising around in my silver chariot being pulled by a pack of lions. Awesome, I know. Just as I was about reenact myself in the movie Ben Hur, some jackass decides to wake up the entire hostel with his new asshole-app. His alarm was a blaring cornucopia of his annoying ringtones, the thing was he was in the shower while his bullhorn phone was left in his locker. Terrific. Although I loved it when he came back into our 30 bed dorm room, someone shouted, “Turn that shit off!” and the guy ran to his locker. And here, just a couple of more alarm sirens later and I was ready to sling some oranges in my pillow case at him, but I needed to get ready for the career fair.

Blah blah blah

Despite my hangover the career and networking fair was dope! Free food, discussion panel with HR managers each from the Big 4 accounting firms, recruiting panel, and 16 other global firms looking to hire. The labor market here is clearly doing quite well.

One more networking event to attend on Sunday, and at this point I’m quite happy. I achieved my goals and I’m well ahead of schedule with more time to explore Singapore.

I really dislike bad management

I dislike it even more when they think in their own minds they run a top shop at the world’s shittiest hostel.

It’s early evening and I’m greeted with a smile from a woman at a low budget hostel in Singapore’s Chinatown. I’m quickly shown where my room is as the woman points down the hall. I enter the numbers on the keypad on the side of the door and I walk into a low lit hallway with dozens of flip flops and rugged shoes on the floor. Room number 5, I’ve found my dorm room. I enter with my cell phone as a flashlight and luckily find my bed. I lay down and quickly realize I don’t fit as my legs hangover the ends. The bed is made of plywood with 6-inch foam padding and a sheet, and the A/C wasn’t working. I lay there thinking how funny this was, yet also how bad I’ve been mislead by their website. I couldn’t find comfort on this crap excuse for a bed. I was convinced I’d be more comfortable on the cool floor. Although I didn’t resort to that, rather I went for a walk to explore and then back to try and check my email, oh and I don’t know maybe even use Skype to call my mom. Nope, those kinds of thoughts are wishful dreams at this place. This shit hole that advertised comfortable beds, which were clearly photoshoped, or a bed that looked really comfortable was put into the photo and then removed. Nevertheless, their site said free internet 24/7, showers, and A/C rooms. How I’ve been duped. I ask to use the internet and they said it cost $2.00 for a half hour. Somehow I’m reminded of the hostels in London, damit! Okay, I said, then why the hell would you advertise the word “FREE” when, in fact, it isn’t. Riddle me that, smiley. Of course she didn’t know about the details of the policy, but was simply instructed to charge for use of the internet. Fine. It is not that $2.00 Singaporean dollars is all that much more compared to the dollar, yet it’s the principle for me. I thought that I might be able to check my email in the comforts of the room where the A/C is, of course not. Let’s sit outside and run a long 20-foot USB cable for the keyboard and mouse to a flimsy poker table where I sat no where near the computer screen that was located inside the hostel pressed up against the glass. I wish I could see the look on my face when I looked back at her. “Can we at least move the table closer so I can see what I’m typing” “Oh yeah, but you might have to move it back again as we get a lot of foot traffic that must go by.” “Ah, sure. And what’s wrong with me sitting inside with the computer?” “This is our policy,” she said. “Awesome.” I then attempted to check my email over this connection that gave me flash backs of 56K modems. I wanted my moneys worth of slow internet so I sat there waiting for it to load. Then once the browser loaded I get a popup the Windows toolbar telling me this version of Windows is pirated. I should have guessed. Of course it is. I couldn’t go any further after seeing that. I’m not trusting my passwords to a computer I can’t even see, let a lone with staff that can’t give me a better answer than “its policy.” I went back later to see if I could even type some of my notes and print them, Ha Ha! Of course not silly. The internet closed with the kitchen hours ago. Come back in the morning. I’ve now made it my goal to meet the person who made these decisions for the hostel and see if I can understand their logic, or stupidity.

It's just for looks, you're not suppose to actually use it.

I finally got so pissed I simply left in the middle of the night. My breaking point came when I walked back to my dorm and couldn’t fit into the bathroom. I get that I’m a little tall and thin, yet I couldn’t manage to squeeze into the sink to wash my hands after I had to do a bout of yoga to contort my body out of the bathroom stall. The shower off to the left was the same. Clearly their goal here in designing was to piss people off, check, and to try to shove as much shit that has to do with a bathroom in the smallest space possible, check.  The odd thing is that this was the only bathroom for 20 other people in this hostel and it was constantly occupied. I didn’t get it. Oh well. My interview is today and I’d kind of like to shave and be somewhat presentable. I had already paid for two nights there, yet I’ll be going back later for a refund for tonight as I’m not sticking around for round 2.

Luckily at 5am I was able to convince the previous hostel I stayed at to let me shower and use their internet. I’m all up for this little adventure I put myself through, just not during times I need to have essentials.

I’m expecting the hostel will not want to give me a refund, and I’m expecting to get loud. I’m curious to see what happens.

Doha to Singapore…

6am sun. There is no shortage of sand in Doha.

Trust me, they are not as comfortable as they look!

Landed in Doha at 1am. All I wanted to do was throw my crap into a corner and sleep. After a quick investigative walk through the airport and a quick study of Qatari currency, I discovered these lounge chairs that apparently were made for 6-year children. Once the bits of old wrappers and other random pieces of garbage were cleaned off, I contorted into the best sleeping position I could to catch a couple hours of sleep, or a least I though until these loud-ass middled aged women (who unsuccessfully managed to mix their hot-topic clothes with their Forever 21 collection) showed up in the quiet zone and thought it would be a great idea to talk at the top of their lungs in French. It sort of reminded me of when my dog use to bark at the wind, turn her head back to check and see if anyone else had heard her barking, then turn back again to resume for more barking. These real-house-wives-rejects managed to get the attention of the airport attendant of the quiet zone, who I assumed told them to shut the hell up, then walked back to his station to, yup, an increased pitch of bitchyness from the botox supporters.

I managed to finally fall asleep to rhythmic pounding in my head from the wonderful pulsating headache I had, and when I awoke again the gregarious group was gone. I imagine while I was asleep there was a massive airport revolt and they were drug outside by the rest of the people trying to sleep, where they proceeded to gag them with those curved airline neck pillows.

I luckily awoke just in time for my flight since the technology for public announcements had yet to make it to my terminal.

Despite Qatar having a shitty airport, Qatar airlines more than made up for it. Their service was good, and their food was awesome: pesto chicken wraps with fruit salad, yoghurt, and mint cookies! On a side note, I found that zoning out while playing on-flight Tetris really helps take my mind off the turbulence.

Singapore Changi Airport

Spotless.

As I was landing in Singapore I was stunned at all the cargo ships I could see from my window. Once landing I was in awe. The airport side-walks here might as well be paved in gold – this airport is astonishing! I’ve never seen such an excellently designed and well kept airport. It is like taking the best of Las Vegas’s glitter, overall exuberance, and cleanlinesses and put it in to the airport here. Very impressive! Immigration security was even nice!

My hostel is pretty cool, we have to take our shoes off before entering, and the people are social. One of my bunk mates from Christchurch, New Zealand had told me of the destruction the earthquakes have caused their. He made it sound like they are well prepared for earthquakes of any size at any time. Makes me wonder why we in California are not.

I’m off to explore this amazing little country and sample as many dishes as possible, of course with out getting sick this time!

“To infinity and beyond!”

Madrid to Doha

It is safe to say that the job market here in Spain is, well, as the local’s say it, mierda. I figured the best thing I could do is at least enjoy myself.

Good sunshine, good friends, and good food is what Madrid has been for me. Oh, and I can’t forget about the delicious sangria! Last year in Morocco I had some of best food I’ve ever had, yet this week in Madrid the dishes were strong contenders, or it simply could have been I was just that hungry.

Tosta with glazed onions

One such sumptuous dish called a tosta had baby mushrooms, goat cheese, caramelized onions with bits of parsley all over a toasted piece of bread – mouth-watering! And the best thing is it was a tapa that came with my beer. Got to love tapas bars.

Huevos rotos

My next favorite is the classic huevos rotos (broken eggs) which is Spanish jamon iberico (ham), patatas (potatos), and of course huevos (eggs sunny side up) then the breaking is when I smash it all together into a pile of awesomeness. So dam good!

The next morning I thought I’d be so full and skip breakfast from the huge meal from last night, nope. I decided to take the classic Spanish breakfast of chocolate and churros.

Churros with white hot chocolate

And, for the first time I successfully made myself sick from all the food, well, at least all the chocolate. Not the most pleasant of feelings. I normally don’t eat like this, yet I don’t know when I’ll be back here so I figured I had better take advantage of it. I just hope that I feel up to my best here in a few hours as I’m going to be on a long flight heading to Qatar, or as my mom likes to say, “guitar”. I’ve never been and I’m not sure what to expect.

Qatar is a small nation next to Saudi

Qatar

Arabia that sticks out into the Persian Gulf, and they have just a little bit of oil. According to The Economist last year their economy was the fastest growing in the world, and they have the highest GDP per capita in the world. They will also be hosting the 2022 World Cup. Hum… maybe I should be looking there for interviews rather than Singapore. Or not, as I can’t seem to get a visa into the country. Adventures ahead!